*    SEP  30 1907     *i 


BS  2651  .D852  1907 
Dubose,  William  Porcher, 

1836-1918. 
The  gospel  according  -to 

Saint  Paul 


THE   GOSPEL 

ACCORDING  TO 

SAINT   PAUL 


BY 

W.  P.  DU  BOSE,  M.A.,  S.T.D. 


The  Soteriology  of  the  New  Testament 

Crown  8vo. 

The  Gospel  in  the  Gospels 

Crown  8vo. 

The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

Crown  8vo. 


THE  GOSPEL 

ACCORDING  TO 

SAINT    PAUL 


V 

William  Porcher  DuBose,  m.a.,  s.t.d. 

AUTHOR  OF  "the  SOTERIOLOGY  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT," 

"  THE  ECUMENICAL  COUNCILS,"  "THE  GOSPEL  IN  THE 

gospels";    PROFESSOR   OF    EXEGESIS     IN   THE 

UNIVERSITY    OF  THE  SOUTH 


LONGMANS,   GREEN  AND   CO 

91  AND  93  FIFTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK 

LONDON,  BOMBAY,  AND  CALCUTTA 

1907 


Copyright,  1907 

BY 

LONGMANS,  GREEN,  AND  CO. 


All  rights  reserved 


The  Plimpton  Press  Norwood  Mass.  U.S.A. 


TO 

S.  p.  D. 

IN  TOKEN  OF  VALUABLE 
SERVICE  IN  THE  PREPA- 
RATION OF  THIS  VOLUME. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.    Introduction 3 

II.    The  Presuppositions  of  the  Gospel 17 

III.  The  Definition  of  the  Gospel 31 

IV.  The  Further  Definition  of  the  Gospel 45 

V.    The  Wrath  of  God  against  Sin 57 

VI.    The  New  Righteousness 69 

VII.  The  Object  of  Justifying  or  Saving  Faith       ...  83 

VIII.  The  Clearing  up  of  the  Mystery  of  Righteousness    .  97 

IX.    The  Faith  of  Abraham 113 

X.    The  Status  of  the  Christian  Believer 125 

XI.    Saint  Paul's  Terminology 143 

XII.    The  First  and  the  Last  Adam 157 

XIII.  The  Christian  in  Christ 171 

XIV.  Not  under  the  Law  but  under  Grace 187 

XV.    Law,  Sin,  and  Redemption         203 

XVI.  The  Condemnation  of  Sin  in  the  Flesh      ....  219 

XVII.    The  Law  of  the  Spirit 233 

XVIII.    The  Mind  of  the  Spirit 249 

XIX.    The  Redemption  of  the  Body 261 

XX.    The  Process  of  Divine  Grace 277 

XXI.    The  Christ  of  Saint  Paul 293 


vu 


I 

INTRODUCTION 


INTRODUCTION 

In  advocating  and  pressing  any  particular  point  of 
view,  one  is  inevitably  liable  to  press  it  unduly  and  at 
the  expense  of  other  points  of  view.  In  the  quest  of 
truth  this  danger  ought  not  to  be  too  much  of  a  deter- 
rent to  either  freedom  of  thought  or  boldness  of  expres- 
sion. The  ultimate  aim  of  each  one  of  us  should  be 
not  to  save  ourselves  from  error  but  to  advance  the 
truth.  We  may  safely  rely  upon  it  that  our  truth  will 
in  the  end  be  accepted  and  our  error  corrected.  If  I 
had  been  too  much  afraid  of  going  wrong  I  should 
have  made  no  progress  in  growing  right;  —  who  of  us 
that  has  really  thought  or  spoken  may  not  say  that  of 
himself.?  For  my  own  part,  I  have  not  merely  tradi- 
tionally believed  but  become  personally  convinced  that 
there  is  a  truth  of  the  Scriptures  and  that  there  is  a 
mind  of  the  Church;  and  that  each  of  these  will  take 
care  of  itself  as  against  the  infinite  errors  and  vagaries 
of  individual  thinkers  and  writers.  I  have  in  my  mind 
not  only  an  implicit  faith  but  a  rational  science  or 
philosophy  of  these  things,  which  at  least  satisfies 
myself  and  gives  me  security  and  rest  from  the  fear 
of  even  my  own  shortcomings  or  too-far-goings.     I  do 

3 


4  Introduction 

not  hesitate  to  say  then,  on  the  one  hand,  that  I  hold 
what  I  hold  subject  to  the  revision  and  correction  of 
the  deeper  truth  of  the  Scriptures  and  the  larger 
wisdom  of  the  Church;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  that, 
leaving  to  these  their  function  of  final  acceptance  or 
rejection,  I  conceive  it  to  be  my  duty  to  the  truth, 
and  my  best  service  to  them,  to  think  the  thoughts 
and  express  the  conclusions,  as  best  I  may,  which 
I  have  found  to  be  to  myself  their  own  best 
interpretation. 

The  particular  method  which,  after  a  lifetime  of 
study  and  reflection,  I  have  found  to  be  the  best  for 
entering  into  the  meaning  of  the  Gospel  of  Jesus 
Christ,  or  into  the  meaning  of  Jesus  Christ  as  Himself 
the  immediate  Word  or  Gospel  of  God,  may  be  brought 
out  by  a  parallelism  or  analogy  between  the  independent 
and  very  different  treatments  of  St.  Paul  and  St.  John. 
The  starting-point,  and  standpoint  all  through,  of 
St.  John's  interpretation  of  our  Lord  is  best  expressed 
in  the  words,  The  Life  was  manifested.  The  Life  had 
been  manifested  first  to  the  outward  eye  and  then  to 
the  inward  vision  of  a  few;  and  it  was  the  mission  of 
these  few  so  to  declare  and  present  it  to  all  others 
that  they  too  might  know  and  enter  into  and  share  it. 
St.  John,  both  in  his  Gospel  and  in  his  Epistles,  acts 
upon  the  true  Aristotelian  principle  that  in  every 
investigation  of  reality  the  fact  or  the  actual  {to  Srt) 
is  the  proper  starting-point  {a.pxn)-  The  fact  which 
is  the  starting-point  in  this  case  is  the  simple  objective 
truth  that  Jesus  Christ  is  the  Life.     That  is  fact  in 


Introduction  5 

itself,  independently  of  any  external  dogmatic  aflSrma- 
tion  or  logical  demonstration  of  it.  And  it  is,  if  fact 
in  itself,  then  fact  verifiable  in  itself;  for  truth,  if 
allowed  to  do  so,  always  can  and  always  will  prove 
itself.  And  this  is  truest  of  what  is  to  us  the  ultimate 
truth,  the  truth  of  Life  and  of  ourselves,  God's  truth 
of  us.  Wisdom,  which  is  knowledge  of  God's  truth,  is 
justified  of  her  children.  There  is  the  Life  —  human 
life  in  all  the  fulness  of  its  meaning  and  divine  reality. 
There  is  the  Truth  —  the  Life  expressed  and  mani- 
fested, something  not  only  ideal  or  potential  but  actual, 
not  only  vision  or  shadow  or  symbol  but  eternal  sub- 
stance. There  is  the  Way:  Life,  human  life  at  least, 
God's  life  in  us,  cannot  come  just  so,  out  of  hand,  by 
immediate  fiat  or  creation  from  without.  It  can  come 
only  in  conjunction,  in  reaction,  in  conflict  and  strife 
with  human  environment  as  it  is  and  with  all  human 
conditions  as  they  are.  Jesus  Christ  is  not  only  the 
truth  or  reality  of  life;  He  is  the  way  of  it  to  us,  and  He 
is  so  only  as  Himself  our  own  true  way  of  life. 

Life  can  be  lived  by  ourselves,  and  our  Lord's  life 
was  lived,  only  in  and  through  the  mastery  of  the  one 
true  way  of  human  life,  by  practical  solution  of  the 
meaning,  the  reason,  and  the  use  of  all  actual  human 
conditions.  In  this  world  none  of  us  can  escape  its 
conditions,  or  be  saved  otherwise  than  by  discharging 
its  inevitable  tasks.  Only  through  conquest  of  the 
world,  the  flesh,  and  the  devil  may  we  attain  unto 
life  eternal.  But  we  have  His  parting  assurance,  In 
the  world  ye  shall  have  tribulation;  but  be  of  good 


6  Introduction 

cheer,  I  have  overcome  the  world.  The  overcoming 
was  His  way  and  ours:  He  drank  the  cup  and  was 
baptized  with  the  baptism  which  we  must  drink  and 
be  baptized  withal,  if  we  would  be  where  and  what 
He  is.  In  leading  us  all  to  glory,  it  behooved  God  to 
make  the  author  of  our  salvation  perfect  through  the 
sufferings  which  are  the  conditions  and  the  means  of 
our  own  perfection  and  salvation.  The  point  to  be 
emphasized  is,  that  our  salvation,  in  all  the  conditions, 
means,  and  way  of  it,  was  first  enacted  or  wrought  out 
in  the  personal  human  experiences  and  life  of  our  Lord. 
He  is  in  fact  to  us  the  Way:  no  man  can  come  to  God, 
and  so  to  himself  and  to  life,  save  through  Him. 

Thus  St.  John  saw  Jesus  Christ  as  The  Life;  the 
truth  or  reality  or  actuality  of  it,  as  distinguished  not 
only  from  its  falsities,  but  from  its  mere  dreams  or 
shadows;  the  way  of  it,  as  including  and  involving  all 
its  conditions  and  causes,  all  its  necessary  means  and 
processes.  Precisely  analogously,  though  not  with  the 
contemplative,  poetic  vision  of  St.  John,  but  rather 
with  his  own  more  active  and  practical  insight,  St. 
Paul  sees  Jesus  Christ  as  not  so  much  our  Life  as  our 
Righteousness.  He  regards  salvation  less  in  the 
accomplished  fact  than  in  the  accomplishing  act  or 
process ;  in  the  making  rather  than  in  the  made  product. 
St.  Paul  does  indeed  see  in  our  Lord  Himself  a  process 
completed,  but  in  the  joy  of  the  completion  he  never 
forgets  or  loses  sight  of  the  process;  in  all  the  glory  of 
what  our  Lord  is  as  man,  the  important  thing  to  re- 
member is  the  one  lifelong  human  act  of  faith  and 


Introduction  7 

obedience  through  which  He  became  the  man  He  is. 
Life,  and  therefore  salvation,  is  indeed  an  act,  a  Hfe- 
long  act  or  activity,  a  process  of  self-actuahzing  or 
becoming  ourselves.  Life  can  be  lived,  or  self  realized, 
only  as  they  are  so  rightly,  in  accordance  with  their 
own  meaning  and  reason  and  law.  That  is  what  the 
whole  Bible  means  when  it  so  emphatically  and  per- 
sistently proclaims  that  rightness  or  righteousness  alone 
is  life,  that  he  who  obeys  the  law  shall  live  by  it,  and 
he  who  violates  it  shall  die  by  it.  It  is  a  universal 
and  necessary  fact  in  itself  that  life,  blessedness,  or 
salvation  is  to  be  found  in  nothing  else  than  in  right 
being  and  right  doing. 

The  first  truth  with  St.  Paul,  then,  is  that  righteous- 
ness is  salvation;  and  the  second  is  that  Jesus  Christ 
is  righteousness.  This  determines  for  us  the  stand- 
point from  which,  I  think,  we  may  best  interpret  the 
Gospel  according  to  St.  Paul.  Our  task  is  first  to 
interpret  righteousness  in  itself,  as  realized  and  mani- 
fested to  us  in  the  person  of  our  Lord.  It  is  then, 
secondly,  to  learn  how  that  righteousness  is  to  be  made 
ours.  The  method  in  a  word  is  this:  through  the 
constant  appropriating  or  taking  it  to  ourselves  in 
faith,  it  is  gradually  and  in  the  end  made  or  becomes 
our  own  in  fact.  This  introduces  the  fact  or  principle 
of  the  marvellous  assimilative  and  transforming  power 
of  faith.  Man  believes  unto  salvation  —  that  is  to  say, 
unto  righteousness  and  life.  Faith  in  the  righteousness 
and  fife  of  Christ  assimilates  and  transforms  us  into 
the  likeness  of  Christ's  righteousness  and  life:  reflect- 


8  Introduction 

ing  as  a  mirror  the  glory  of  the  Lord,  we  are  transformed 
into  the  same  image  from  glory  to  glory,  even  as  from 
the  Lord  the  Spirit. 

To  understand  this  new-creative  power  of  faith,  we 
must  comprehend  something  of  the  complex  and  com- 
prehensive nature  of  faith.  In  the  light  of  the  mystery 
or  miracle  by  which  all  nature  is  made  ours  through 
the  senses,  we  ought  not  to  halt  at  that  higher  mystery 
whereby  God  makes  Himself  our  own  through  faith. 
After  all  there  is  as  much  of  higher  naturalness  in  the 
latter  as  there  is  of  lower  in  the  former.  Faith  is  the 
highest  and  most  distinctive  function  and  activity  of 
the  spirit  of  man.  It  involves  the  highest  energy  not 
alone  of  his  intelligence  but  of  his  affections,  his  will, 
his  entire  selfhood  or  personality.  If  we  realize  even 
in  the  lower  spheres  a  truth  in  such  sayings  as  that: 
what  we  think,  we  are;  what  we  love,  we  are;  what  we 
believe  or  mean  or  intend,  we  are;  —  how  much  truer 
should  it  be  that  what  our  most  real  self  and  selfhood 
concentrates  itself  upon,  attaches  and  gives  itself  up  to 
through  every  spiritual  faculty  and  passion  of  its  nature, 
that,  if  we  not  already  are,  we  most  assuredly  shall  be. 
This,  I  repeat,  gives  a  sort  of  naturalness,  if  not  indeed 
the  highest  and  truest  naturalness,  to  the  truth  that  we 
believe  unto  righteousness  or  unto  life;  that  faith  saves; 
and  that  there  is  no  other  way  of  spiritual  salvation  or 
of  personal  self-realization  than  through  faith. 

There  are  those  who  object  to  our  making  salvation, 
the  life  of  the  spirit,  the  life  of  religion  in  general,  too 
natural  a  process.     We  cannot  kick  against  the  pricks; 


Introduction  9 

the  world  has  begun  to  make  the  discovery,  and  it 
will  not  go  backward  in  it,  that  the  natural  is  God's 
way.  The  natural  is  the  rational  and  the  divine. 
There  is  no  real  break  between  the  natural  and  the 
supernatural;  the  one  is  only  the  higher  or  further 
other.  We  shall  come  to  see  that  Adam  and  Christ 
are  the  same  Man;  that  earth  and  heaven  are  one 
continuous  life,  easy  here  or  there  to  be  made  a  hell 
of;  that  nature  and  God  are  one  world,  too  easily 
divorced  and  set  at  enmity,  incapable  of  too  close 
reconciliation  or  at-onement.  Under  the  prevalence  of 
the  modem  scientific  principle  of  evolution  we  have 
discovered  that  the  great  primal  truth  of  God  creating 
is  neither  denied  nor  obscured,  but  is  as  much  as  ever 
not  only  a  possibility  but  a  postulate  of  thought  in 
what,  nevertheless,  appears  and  can  appear  to  Science 
only  as  a  world  self -evolving.  Still  more  shall  we  need 
to  learn  in  Jesus  Christ  and  His  Church  that  the 
greater  truth  of  God  redeeming  and  saving  is  neither 
diminished  nor  obscured  by  the  fact  that  it  is  a  truth 
made  visible  to  us  only  in  the  phenomenon  of  a  hu- 
manity self-redeemed  and  self-saved.  No  man  hath 
seen  God  at  any  time;  if  God  be  in  a  man.  He  will  be 
visible  in  him  only  in  what  the  man  himself  is.  God 
was  in  Christ  sub  specie  hominis,  not  Dei.  He  was 
here  to  fulfil  and  manifest  Himself  in  us  and  us  in 
Him;  not  Himself  otherwise  than  in  us,  or  in  any 
other  revelation  of  Himself  than  as  our  holiness, 
righteousness,  and  fife.  That  was  effected  for  us  ob- 
jectively, or  as  an  object  or  end  to  our  faith,  in  the 


10  Introduction 

person  of  the  Incarnate  Word;  it  is  effected  subjectively 
by  a  power  working  in  us  through  faith,  the  power  of 
the  Incarnate  Spirit.  That  the  personal  Spirit  of  God 
and  the  personal  character  and  life  of  God  should  be 
ours  through  faith  is  as  truly  natural  an  operation  and 
result  as  that  nature's  breath  and  Hfe  should  be  ours 
through  our  bodily  organs. 

Forasmuch  then  as  God  was  in  Christ  for  the 
specific  purpose  and  to  the  specific  end  of  being  to 
us  and  in  us  the  whole  truth  of  ourselves,  of  manifesting 
and  imparting  to  us  Himself  as  our  holiness,  our 
righteousness,  and  our  eternal  life,  it  follows  that  it 
should  be  our  part  to  see  in  Jesus  Christ  just  that  as 
what  God  wills  to  reveal,  and  to  accept  in  Him  just 
that  as  what  God  wills  to  bestow.  I  say  so  much  in 
explanation  and  justification  of  what  will  seem  to  some 
an  undue  insistence  upon  the  humanity  of  our  Lord. 
There  will  be  statements  no  doubt  so  one-sided  in 
themselves  as,  if  they  stood  alone,  to  endanger  or  to 
obscure  other  no  less  essential  sides  of  the  truth.  But 
I  hope  it  will  be  seen  and  felt  that  they  do  not  stand 
alone.  One  such  statement  I  would  make  clear  in 
the  beginning:  I  lay  down  the  principle  that  in  inter- 
preting the  human  life  and  work  of  Jesus  Christ  I 
construe  Him  to  myself  in  terms  of  humanity.  I  make 
no  difference  there  between  Him  and  us  save  in  the 
one  particular,  which  is  the  one  Scriptural  exception, 
of  His  sole  perfect  sinlessness  or  holiness.  His  sole 
complete  and  perfect  victory  over  the  world.  His 
accomphshed  task  of  uniting  humanity  with  God  and 


Introduction  11 

so  redeeming  it  from  sin  and  death.  That  is  enough 
for  me  as  demonstration  of  our  Lord's  deity  also, 
enough  not  alone  to  enable  but  to  compel  the  confession 
that  Jesus  Christ  was  as  truly  more  than  man  as  He 
was  also  truly  man.  I  bow  before  not  only  the  work 
of  Jesus  Christ  as  truly  God's  but  the  Worker  in  Jesus 
Christ  as  truly  God.  God's  eternal  Wisdom  and  Word 
which  are  eternally  God's  Self  were  truly  incarnate  in 
His  person,  and  wrought  with  His  hands  the  creed  of 
creeds.  I  go  further  and  repeat  the  conviction  that, 
so  far  as  our  knowledge  and  experience  can  go,  no- 
where else  in  all  God's  universe,  in  all  His  infinite 
and  manifold  activities,  is  God  so  God  as  in  the  person 
and  work  of  Jesus  Christ.  For  in  Jesus  Christ  God 
is  all  love,  and  love  of  all  things  is  most  God. 

I  might  be  allowed  to  use  the  opportunity  to  say  an 
additional  word  upon  the  subject  of  discussions  such 
as  we  are  here  touching  upon.  These  are  times  —  but, 
let  us  remember,  not  more  so  than  were  the  earliest 
and  most  living  ages  of  Christianity  —  of  thought  and 
speculation,  original  and  independent  thought  and  spec- 
ulation, upon  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus  Christ.  They 
are  not  times  of  unthinking  and  unquestioning  accept- 
ance of  foregone  and  foreclosed  inquiry  and  investi- 
gation. The  fact  may  be  condemned  and  lamented, 
but  no  amount  of  shutting  our  own  or  others'  eyes 
and  ears  to  it  will  make  it  any  the  less  a  fact.  The 
whole  truth  of  Scripture  and  the  whole  mind  of 
the  Church  might  surely,  one  might  say,  be  accepted 
as  being  conjointly  the  ultimate  expression  to  us  of 


12  Introduction 

what  Christianity  is,  what  constitutes  the  essential  or 
necessary  truth  of  it.  This,  however,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  does  not  end  the  matter.  What  is  the  whole 
truth  of  the  Scripture,  and  what  is  the  whole  mind  of 
the  Church?  Some  will  say,  these  are  things  which 
have  been  determined  for  us,  and  the  very  reopening 
them  is  fatal  to  the  fact  or  the  possibihty  of  any  such 
thing  as  a  cathoKc  truth  or  unity.  Are  these  questions 
indeed  closed.'^  They  may  be  for  those  who  say  they 
are.  But  what  of  the  great  Hving,  thinking  Christian 
world  to  which,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  they  are  not  closed  ? 
They  are  tremendously  not  closed,  and  tremendously 
in  question.  And  they  are  not  going  to  be  closed  by 
any  possible  amount  of  mere  saying  or  asserting  that 
they  ought  to  be.  A  few  bewildered  and  weary  souls, 
to  escape  doubt  and  in  despair  of  any  self-determining 
power  of  truth  or  life  in  itself,  will  from  time  to  time 
seek,  and  perhaps  find,  refuge  and  rest  in  the  quiet 
places  where  they  are  no  longer  in  question  and  under 
the  assurance  that  they  are  infallibly  settled.  But 
there  is  in  fact  no  such  rest  for  a  really  living  and  a 
really  thinking  world.  The  whole  truth  of  the  Scripture 
and  the  whole  mind  of  the  Church  are  not  dead  but 
live  things.  The  fact  of  their  being  alive  and  forever 
obliged  to  keep  themselves  alive  with  a  life  that  is 
within  themselves  will  not  preclude  the  possibihty  of 
their  gaining  for  themselves  assent,  consent,  and  agree- 
ment; of  their  attaining  even,  as  every  other  kind  of 
truth  does,  a  catholic  unity  and  permanence  of  form 
and  expression,  a  quod  semper,  quod  uhique,  et  quod  ah 


Introduction  13 

omnibus.  The  fact  of  truth's  being  always  alive  and 
always  in  question  for  its  life  does  not  militate  against 
its  credit  for  truth  or  its  tenure  of  life.  And  there  is 
every  advantage  in  truth's  being  under  the  necessity 
of  being  always  our  truth,  and  not  merely  that  of  other 
thinkers  and  of  another  age. 

The  initial  difficulty  before  us  lies  in  the  want  of 
assurance  that  there  is  such  a  thing  possible,  such  a 
thing  to  be  sought  and  found,  and  to  be  held  in  union 
and  unity  with  all  our  might,  as  a  truth  of  the  Scripture 
and  a  mind  of  the  Church.  We  need  to  have  and  to 
spread  such  a  conviction;  and  the  best  and  only  way 
to  extend  the  conviction  is  that  we  who  share  it  shall 
as  much  as  possible  act  in  union  and  harmony  with 
one  another  in  the  common  cause  of  its  extension. 
There  is  no  real  unity  in  which  there  is  not  diversity, 
and  in  the  highest  unity  there  is  the  utmost  diversity. 
We  shall  not  all  agree  in  the  methods  or  in  the  infinite 
details;  we  shall  not  all  be  altogether  right;  we  shall 
all  be  wrong  in  many  ways.  But  for  all  that,  if  we  are 
thoroughly  agreed  that  there  is  a  truth  of  the  Scripture 
to  be  known  and  a  mind  of  the  Church  to  be  understood 
and  shared,  we  shall  not  fail  to  accompHsh  great  things 
towards  a  necessary  and  a  possible  result,  the  divine 
result  of  Christian  unity.  In  that  spirit,  we  shall 
gratefully  acknowledge  one  another's  contributions  of 
truth,  whatever  they  may  be;  and  we  shall  not  content 
ourselves  with  anathematizing  one  another's  short- 
comings or  errors,  but  rather  labour  in  love  for  mutual 
understanding  and  mutual  correction  and  amendment. 


14  Introduction 

If  we  are  to  work  successfully  to  the  common  end,  we 
must  learn  so  to  work  together  as  that  our  very  faults 
and  falsities  shall,  through  the  sympathetic  and  co- 
operating correction  and  amendment  of  one  another, 
be  made  to  work  together  for  the  common  good.  In 
this  spirit,  I  offer  all  I  shall  have  to  say  to  the  further- 
ance of  the  common  cause  of  Christian  unity,  subject 
to  correction  by  the  higher  truth  of  the  Scriptures  and 
the  larger  wisdom  of  the  Church. 

The  position  here  taken  is,  to  my  mind,  independent 
of  any  present  or  future  conclusions  of  scepticism  or 
criticism  with  regard  either  to  the  Scriptures  or  the 
Church.  I  fully  recognize  not  only  the  function  but 
the  necessity  of  both  scepticism  and  criticism,  in  their 
true  meaning  and  use;  and  I  presume  neither  to  limit 
nor  to  define  these.  But  the  fact  will  always  remain 
that  we  receive  our  Christianity  through  the  Scriptures 
and  the  Church,  and  that  these  are  the  tribunal  of 
final  resort  for  determining  what  Christianity  is. 
Human  reason  and  human  experience  have  a  great 
part  too  to  play  in  the  matter,  but  that  is  both  later 
and  different.  It  was  not  theirs  to  give  us  Chris- 
tianity, but  it  is  theirs  to  pass  upon  the  question  whether 
Christianity  as  given  is  not  what  it  claims  to  be,  the 
whole  truth  of  ourselves,  because  the  whole  truth  of 
God  in  ourselves.  Through  them  we  set-to  our  own 
seals  that  God  in  Christ  is  true.  But  by  reason  and 
experience  I  mean  not  those  of  each  but  those  of  all, 
which  really  means  of  those  who  know.  The  judges 
of  spiritual  things  are  spiritual  men. 


n 


THE  PRESUPPOSITIONS  OF  THE 
GOSPEL 


The  Gospel  of  God,  which  He  promised  afore  by  His  prophets 
m  the  Holy  Scriptures.  —  Romans  I.  1,  2. 

We  speak  God's  wisdom  in  a  mystery,  even  the  wisdom  that 
hath  been  hidden,  which  God  foreordained  before  the  worlds  unto 
our  glory.  —  1  Corinthians  H.  7. 


n 


THE  PRESUPPOSITIONS  OF  THE  GOSPEL 

A  GOSPEL,  to  be  such,  presupposes  all  the  conditions 
necessary  to  make  it  a  gospel.  A  gospel  from  God 
to  men  presupposes  on  the  side  of  men  all  the  capaci- 
ties, needs,  and  desires  which  are  to  be  gratified  and 
satisfied  by  it;  and  on  the  part  of  God,  the  nature, 
disposition,  and  power  to  communicate  the  satisfac- 
tions which  compose  it.  It  is  impossible,  therefore, 
for  a  gospel  to  be  a  sudden  or  unexpected  thing. 
The  wants  it  supplies  must  have  pre-existed,  and  must 
have  developed  to  the  point  of  preparing  an  adequate 
receptivity.  And  there  must  have  been  growing  pre- 
monition, promise,  and  expectation  of  the  internal  satis- 
faction from  its  external  source.  The  infant  is  not  only 
sensible  of  its  need  of  nourishment,  but  equally  at 
once  expects  it  from  the  mother's  breast.  The  spiritual 
needs  may  be  of  later  development  than  the  physical, 
but  it  is  the  spiritual  nature  of  man  not  only  to  have 
needs,  but  to  expect  their  gratification  and  satisfaction 
from  God.  The  human  soul  must  not  only  have 
called  upon  God  but  have  received  answers  from  Him 
long  before  the  complete  response  of  the  Gospel  of 
Jesus  Christ.     What  was  gospel  or  fulfilment  in  Him 

17 


18      The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

must  have  been  from  the  beginning  of  spiritual  ex- 
perience, promise,  and  expectation  of  Him. 

The  Gospel  as  St.  Paul  knows  it  presupposes  always 
premonitions  and  prophecies  of  itself  in  the  previous 
history  of  humanity  from  the  beginning,  and  especially 
of  Hebrew  humanity  since  Abraham.  His  recognition 
of  the  prophets  need  not  now  concern  us  beyond  the 
universal  sense  and  function  of  prophecy.  In  the 
nature  of  the  thing  there  must  have  been  prophecy 
before  gospel.  There  would  naturally  be  most  dis- 
tinctive and  developed  prophecy  along  that  line  of 
human  history  on  which  spiritual  consciousness  and 
experience  were  most  emphasized  and  developed;  but 
in  Hebrew  history  itself  there  was  recognition  of 
prophecy  outside  itself.  We  need  not  make  a  point 
of  locating  or  limiting  all  the  inspiration  or  the  proph- 
ecy of  the  world.  Wherever  in  any  measure  or  in 
any  manner  the  supply  of  the  divine  spirit  meets  and 
satisfies  the  demand  of  the  human  spirit,  there  is  at 
least  the  beginning  of  inspiration;  and  wherever  there 
is  even  a  little  there  is  always  potency  and  promise 
and  prophecy  of  more  or  of  all. 

We  must,  however,  insist  upon  confining  our  own 
sense  of  inspiration  to  its  proper  content  and  its  proper 
source.  There  are  many  kinds  of  inspiration,  and 
many  kinds  of  prophecy;  and  since  all  truth  and  all 
beauty  as  well  as  all  goodness  is  divine,  all  those 
through  whom  at  first  hand  these  have  come  to  us  have 
been  in  a  true  sense  prophets  of  the  divine.  But  the 
abstract  or  impersonal  spirit  of  truth,  of  beauty,  and 


The  Presuppositions  of  the  Gospel      19 

even  of  justice  or  righteousness,  has  spoken  through 
many  who  were  strangers  and  even  enemies  to  the 
personal  Spirit  of  God.  There  has  been  many  an 
inspired  poet  or  artist  or  philosopher  or  scientist  or 
even  moralist  who  knew  nothing  of  the  inspiration 
that  is  either  from  God  or  of  God.  If  any  man  have 
not  the  spirit  of  God  he  is  none  of  His.  And  the 
spirit  of  God  is  the  Spirit  of  God.  It  is  no  abstract  or 
impersonal,  physical  or  metaphysical,  attribute  or  con- 
cept or  symbol  or  influence  of  Him,  —  but  Himself,  in 
the  deepest  personal  truth  of  Himself,  in  us  as  the 
deepest  personal  truth  of  ourselves.  The  man  himself, 
the  real  personality  of  a  man,  is  not  the  brilliance  of 
his  intellect,  or  the  greatness  of  his  power,  or  the 
magnitude  of  his  achievements,  —  it  is  "  the  manner 
of  spirit  he  is  of."  When  we  come  to  pass  judgment 
upon  the  man,  Julius  Caesar  or  Napoleon  Bonaparte 
or  Bacon  or  Seneca  or  Voltaire,  all  accidental  differ- 
ences disappear,  and  the  common  standard  applies  to 
them  and  to  the  least  among  us.  The  spirit  of  the 
man  is  the  man,  and  the  spirit  that  he  "is  of"  is  what 
he  is  personally  in  relation  with  other  persons.  We 
are  not  abstractions  ourselves,  and  our  real  deahngs 
are  not  with  abstract  things  —  even  though  it  be  abstract 
truth  or  beauty  or  duty  —  but  with  persons.  So  God 
Himself  is  not  wisdom  or  power  or  cause  or  substance. 
He  is  not  truth  or  beauty  or  goodness,  —  He  is  Him- 
self, He  is  God.  And  God  Himself  is  the  Spirit  He  is 
of;  He  is  what  He  is  to  all  other  beings,  and  especially 
to  all  other  personal  beings.     Above  all  other  being. 


20      The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

spiritual  being  is  a  "being  in  relation,"  and  in  relations. 
The  perfect  personal  relation  is  that  of  perfect  Love; 
and  the  true  physical  or  metaphysical  as  well  as  spiritual 
definition  or  expression  of  God  as  Personal  God  is 
Love.  That  is  Himself,  and  that  is  what  we  have  to 
do  with  when  in  the  most  real  sense  we  speak  of  such 
high  things  as  inspiration  or  prophecy.  Inspiration, 
therefore,  as  we  mean  it,  is  any  real  communication 
of  the  Spirit  of  God  Himself  to  the  spirit  of  man;  and 
the  prophet  is  he  through  whom  at  first  hand  God 
Himself  speaks  to  us  of  Himself.  The  prophet  is  thus 
first,  in  his  own  personality,  the  representative  of  man 
to  Godward;  he  is  man  in  the  highest  reach  of  his 
affinity  or  relationship  with  God.  Above  all  else,  he 
is  prophet,  forerunner  and  preparer,  of  Him  who  is 
more  than  prophet,  —  not  only  man  to  Godward,  but 
no  less  God  to  manward. 

The  first  presupposition  of  the  Gospel,  then,  in  the 
mind  of  St.  Paul  as  well  as  in  fact,  was  God's  promise 
afore  by  His  prophets.  The  second  is  expressed  in 
the  words  "in  holy  scriptures,  or  writings."  That  the 
pre-existence  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  was  humanly 
and  historically  a  prior  condition  of  the  appearance 
of  the  Gospel  is  clear  enough.  Our  Lord  regarded 
Himself  as  in  a  sense  the  product  and  fulfilment  of 
the  Scriptures ;  although  —  in  a  truer  sense  —  He  re- 
garded the  Scriptures  as  promise  and  product  of  Him- 
self; as  the  shadow,  though  cast  before,  is  nevertheless 
consequence  and  not  cause  of  the  substance  that 
follows  after.     But  the  ideas,  the  principles,  the  whole 


The  Presuppositions  of  the  Gospel      21 

truth  as  well  as  expression  of  the  Gospel  was  so  pre- 
pared beforehand  in  the  spiritual  history  and  literature 
of  the  Jews  that  it  is  suflSciently  correct  to  number 
these  among  its  presuppositions  and  conditions,  with 
the  understanding  which  we  proceed  now  to  present. 

If  we  may  say  that  Christianity  was  a  higher  devel- 
opment or  a  product  of  Judaism,  we  must  nevertheless 
recognize  it  as  a  case  in  which  the  effect  so  manifestly 
transcends  the  cause  that  we  cannot  but  admit  the 
appearance  in  it  of  some  new  thing,  which  as  much 
differentiates  it  from  its  past  as  it  is  identified  with  it. 
When,  for  example,  our  Lord  Himself,  as  well  as  all 
after  Him,  insists  upon  interpreting  the  whole  Old 
Testament  Scriptures  as  a  witness  beforehand  of  the 
truth  or  principle  of  the  Resurrection,  which  in  its 
turn  is  the  essence  of  the  Gospel,  it  is  quite  legitimate 
for  literary  and  historical  criticism  to  insist  on  its  part 
that  the  prophetic  proof  of  the  resurrection  in  the  Old 
Testament  is  not  a  legitimate  interpretation  of  the 
Old  Testament.  Indeed  it  is  not,  if  we  intend  by  it 
to  say,  either  that  the  letter  of  the  Old  Testament 
means  as  much  as  the  Resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ, 
or  that  the  truth  of  Christ's  resurrection  does  not  tran- 
scend any  natural  expectation  of  the  Old  Testament. 
The  fact  is,  it  does  so  transcend  it  that  the  Old  Testa- 
ment proofs  of  the  New  Testament  facts  are,  for  the 
most  part,  from  the  true  standpoint  of  natural  criticism, 
not  interpretations  at  all,  but  rather  only  applications 
or  accommodations.  The  truth  of  the  New  Testament 
is  the  meaning  of  the  Old,  but  it  goes  beyond  that 


22      The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

meaning;  just  as  the  great  fact  of  the  New  Testament 
is  the  logical  and  historical  sequent  of  the  events  of 
the  Old  Testament,  and  yet  transcends  the  natural 
order  of  those  events.  That  the  Old  Testament  did 
not  produce  the  New  is  witnessed  by  the  verdict  of 
criticism  that  the  fulfilments  of  the  latter  transcend  all 
promises  or  prophecies  of  the  former.  That  the  Old 
Testament  did,  in  a  sense  or  degree,  produce  the  New 
is  proved  by  the  fact  that  criticism  cannot  find  outside 
of  it  the  antecedent  conditions  which  did  produce  it. 
Christianity  both  was  not  the  product  of  Judaism  and, 
so  far  as  criticism  can  discover,  was  the  product  of 
nothing  else  than  Judaism. 

Now,  to  recur  to  our  crucial  example,  in  what  sense 
does,  and  does  not,  the  Old  Testament  as  a  whole 
bear  witness  to,  promise  and  prophecy,  the  resurrection 
of  Jesus  Christ.?  How,  for  instance,  could  Bishop 
Home,  as  I  beheve  he  did,  claim  that  every  psalm  in 
the  Psalter  might  be  understood  as  Messianic,  might  be 
interpreted  to  mean  not  only  Christ  but  Christ's  suffer- 
ings and  triumph.  His  death  and  His  resurrection  ? 
The  answer  is  that  the  Psalter  is  the  typical  book  of 
human  devotion,  the  intercourse  between  the  soul  and 
its  God.  Every  least  saint,  every  one  who  believes 
and  prays  and  receives  comfort  from  God,  is  in  his 
measure  a  type  and  prophecy  of  the  perfect  saint,  the 
perfect  sanctity  which  is  Jesus  Christ  Himself,  the  final 
victory  of  faith,  hope,  and  love,  the  consummated 
death  to  sin,  sorrow,  and  death  itself,  the  eternal  life 
in  and  to  God.     The  burden  of  the  Old  Testament  is 


The  Presuppositions  of  the  Gospel      23 

just  that  relationship  of  the  personal  spirit  of  man  to 
the  personal  Spirit  of  God  which  first  finds  its  complete 
expression  in  Jesus  Christ,  and  finds  it  in  Him  through 
the  act  and  experience  of  what  we  call  the  Cross.  So 
our  Lord  could  see,  as  each  of  us  can  see  just  in  pro- 
portion as  we  see  as  He  saw,  with  the  eyes  not  of  sense 
but  of  the  spirit,  that  not  alone  the  Old  Testament,  but 
humanity  itself,  and  the  whole  creation,  and  God, 
were  full  of  the  truth  and  meaning  of  Him.  Before 
Abraham  was,  or  Adam,  or  the  worlds  —  He  is,  because 
He  was  their  meaning  in  the  beginning,  and  will  be 
their  fufilment  in  the  end.  But,  while  even  the  least 
saint  or  sanctity  of  the  Old  Testament  could  be  a  type 
and  prophecy  of  the  risen  Christ,  to  the  extent  of  being 
on  the  fine  and  pointing  in  the  direction  of  Him  — 
even  though  the  differences  might  still  be  far  more 
evident  than  the  likeness  —  yet  none  before  Him  could 
so  express  Him,  and  nothing  before  it  could  so  pre- 
figure the  supreme  act  of  His  resurrection,  as  that  it 
could  be  literally  or  visibly  true  to  say  that  the  Old 
Testament  ever  rose  to  the  height  of  the  truth  of  the 
New.  It  is  perfectly  plain  to  see,  with  one  and  all  the 
writers  of  the  New  Testament,  that  they  are  never 
trying  to  construct  facts  out  of  the  material  of  the  Old, 
but  on  the  contrary  are  ever  striving  to  find  in  the  Old 
the  meaning  and  interpretation  of  facts  which  quite  as 
much  transcended  and  confounded  as  they  fulfilled 
and  satisfied  its  expectations.  When  once  the  spiritual 
mind  that  responded  to  Christianity  was  surprised  to 
enthusiasm  with  the  fulfilments  and  satisfactions  which 


24      The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

it  had  to  offer  to  that  which  it  was  replacing  rather 
than  displacing,  it  was  but  natural  that  it  should  run 
to  extremes,  and  not  only  find  true  interpretations  of 
the  new  in  the  old,  but  endeavour  to  bend  everything  in 
the  old  to  the  meaning  of  the  new.  And  so,  I  say, 
many  of  the  proofs  and  explanations  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament taken  from  the  Old  are  to  be  treated  not  as 
interpretations  but  as  applications  of  the  ideas,  prin- 
ciples, and  even  the  bare  language  of  the  latter  to  the 
truths  and  facts  of  the  former.  But  is  there  not  some- 
thing remarkable  in  the  way  and  extent  of  the  appli- 
cability of  the  spirit  and  the  letter  of  the  Old  Testament 
to  the  New,  even  where  the  connection  is  only  applica- 
tion and  not  genuine  interpretation  ?  What  other  whole 
history  and  Kterature  is  so  applicable  to  a  single  fact 
or  event  which  nevertheless  so  completely  transcends, 
while  fulfilling,  its  meaning  ? 

In  close  connection  with  prophecy  and  scripture, 
there  is  another  no  whit  less  vital  historical  presuppo- 
sition of  the  Gospel,  and  one  which  St.  Paul  was  much 
more  immediately  concerned  to  reckon  with  than  all 
the  others.  That  is  the  Law,  which  the  Gospel,  mainly 
through  his  own  instrumentahty,  displaced;  but  dis- 
placed only  by  fulfilling  and  replacing.  There  will  be 
so  much  to  say  upon  the  relation  of  the  Law  to  the 
Gospel,  that  the  following  must  suflfice  in  the  present 
connection.  There  is  so  much  said  in  St.  Paul's 
presentation  of  the  Gospel  of  the  impotence  and  con- 
sequent superseding  of  the  Law,  that  we  are  in  danger 
of  forgetting  under  his  seeming  disparagement  how 


The  Presuppositions  of  the  Gospel      25 

much  he  is  really  magnifying  it.  The  fact  is  that  the 
Gospel  itself  is  only  the  Gospel  in  so  far  as  it  is  the 
true,  and  the  only,  fulfilling  of  the  Law.  The  Gospel 
is  the  power  to  fulfil  the  Law.  And  if  there  had  not 
been  first  the  developed  experience  and  sense  of  the 
Law  itself  and  of  the  necessity  of  fulfilling  it;  and  then 
the  no  less  true  experience  of  the  impossibility  of  the 
Law  fulfiUing  itself  in  us,  or  of  our  fulfilling  it  in  our- 
selves; and  then  again  the  experience  of  actual  trans- 
gression and  the  consequent  sense  of  sin,  —  if  all  this 
had  not  gone  before,  there  would  have  been  neither 
truth  in  itself  nor  possible  meaning  for  us  in  the  Gospel 
of  Jesus  Christ.  The  Law,  therefore,  was  the  most 
immediate  and  essential  presupposition  of  the  Gospel; 
and  the  Hebrew  development  of  the  moral  sense  and 
the  moral  law,  the  Hebrew  passion  for  righteousness 
and  sense  of  sin,  was  the  most  necessary  historical 
preparation  for  the  advent  of  the  Gospel. 

There  is  one  other  point  upon  which,  before  passing 
from  the  historical  presuppositions  of  the  Gospel,  we 
must  touch,  and  far  more  briefly  than  its  importance 
deserves.  The  Hebrew  contributed  to  the  final  religion 
not  only  the  moral  principle  of  the  law,  or  righteousness, 
but  the  spiritual  principle  of  faith,  or  holiness;  which 
means  that  in  Hebraism  there  was  not  only  the  end  of 
the  Law  but  the  beginning  of  the  Gospel.  For  the 
transition  from  one  to  the  other  is  that  from  self -right- 
eousness, or  obedience  of  law,  to  God-righteousness,  or 
the  receptivity  of  faith.  Along  with  and  through 
experience  of  the  insuflSciency  of  the  law  as  a  means 


26      The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

of  righteousness  and  life,  there  is  developed  faith  or 
dependence  in  God  as  the  source  and  power  of  right- 
eousness and  life.  Faith  is  the  sense  and  consciousness 
and  knowledge  of  God  as  a  person.  As  such,  in  the 
historical  antecedents  of  Christianity,  God  was  known 
only  among  the  Jews.  They  gave  to  it  not  only  the 
supernatural  object  —  which  is  God  —  but  the  super- 
natural sense  or  faculty,  which  is  the  condition  of 
knowing  God.  We  must  count,  then,  the  Hebrew 
evolution  of  faith  as  not  least  among  the  historical 
presuppositions  of  the  Gospel. 

But  behind  and  before  all  these  historical  antecedents, 
the  profound  philosophic  mind  of  St.  Paul  recognized 
yet  deeper  natural,  we  might  say  evolutional,  pre- 
conditions of  the  Gospel.  The  Gospel  is  conditioned 
by  the  very  nature  of  man.  It  is  not  only  part  but 
chiefest  and  highest  part  in  God's  foreknowledge  and 
predestination  of  man.  We  cannot  discriminate  be- 
tween the  predestination  of  God  and  the  predestination 
of  nature.  What  our  nature  constitutes  us  to  become 
God  has  predestined  us  to  be.  "  Has  predestined  "  or 
"  predestines  " ;  for  neither  can  we  distinguish  between 
what  God  did  and  does.  Beginnings,  processes,  and 
ends  are  all  one  with  Him.  His  purposes  are  identical 
with  the  actual  working  of  things.  Humanity  was 
predestined  for  the  Gospel  in  the  sense  that  the  Gospel, 
which  is  Jesus  Christ  Himself,  is  the  natural  —  more 
than  natural,  supernatural  or  ultimate  highest  natural 
—  end  or  completion,  and  so  predestination,  of  hu- 
manity.    Jesus  Christ,  according  to  St.  Paul,  or  the 


The  Presuppositions  of  the  Gospel      27 

Gospel  of  the  resurrection  and  eternal  life  in  and 
through  Him,  is  the  end  and  consummation  of  the 
whole  creation.  In  Him,  or  It,  we  have  the  revelation 
of  the  mystery  or  secret  of  the  divine  purpose  from  the 
beginning.  In  Him  is  made  manifest  the  hidden 
wisdom  of  God,  foreordained  before  the  worlds  unto 
our  glory.  If  the  rulers  of  this  world  had  known  it, 
they  would  not  have  crucified  the  Lord  of  glory.  The 
general  meaning  of  glory  in  this  connection  is  that 
final  completion  of  the  whole  creation  in  God,  to  which 
from  the  beginning,  because  in  itself  and  by  its  divine 
constitution,  it  was  predestined  in  man,  as  man  in 
Christ.  Just  what  the  natural  predestination  of  man 
in  Christ  is,  St.  Paul  defines  to  be  a  predetermination 
—  which  in  the  process  of  fulfilment  is  an  actual 
determination  —  unto  sonship  through  Jesus  Christ 
unto  God.  In  the  divine  foreknowledge  humanity  was 
predetermined  to  be  conformed  to  the  image  of  the 
Son  of  God,  that  He  might  be  the  first-bom  among 
many  brethren.  So  Jesus  Christ  is  the  God-appointed, 
as  He  is  the  naturally  constituted,  heir  of  all  things. 
In  Him  man  comes  into  his  divinely  predetermined, 
and  his  naturally  as  well  as  divinely  determined,  in- 
heritance —  and  in  man,  as  its  head,  the  whole  creation. 
I  touch  lightly  now  upon  this  Pauline  philosophy  of 
the  meaning  of  man  and  the  purpose  of  God  as  revealed 
in  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ,  merely  to  call  attention 
to  the  fact  that  to  St.  Paul  the  Gospel  is  no  new  or 
disconnected  incident  or  event  in  the  history  of  hu- 
manity or  in  the  course  of  nature.     It  is  that  which. 


28       The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

for  the  first  time,  gives  fulness  of  meaning  to  them 
both.  The  true  presupposition  of  the  Gospel  of  Jesus 
Christ  is  the  whole,  natural  and  spiritual,  creation  of 
God.  It  is  something  before  that  even,  inasmuch  as 
it  has  its  roots  in  the  nature  of  God  Himself,  who  as 
Eternal  Father  is  predestined  to  fulfil  Himself  in  a 
universal  Sonship. 


Ill 

THE  DEFINITION  OF  THE  GOSPEL 


The  Gospel  —  concerning  His  Son,  Who  was  bom  of  the  seed  of 
David  according  to  the  flesh,  Who  was  declared  to  be  the  Son  of  God 
(Gr.  determined  Son  of  God)  with  power,  according  to  the  spirit  of 
holiness,  by  the  resurrection  of  the  dead,  even  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord . 
—  Romans  I.  3,  4. 


m 


THE   DEFINITION    OF   THE    GOSPEL 

The  Gospel  may  be  defined  in  terms  of  Jesus  Christ, 
as  it  stands  fulfilled  and  complete  in  Him;  or  it  may  be 
defined  in  terms  of  ourselves,  as  we  stand  in  our  present 
relation  to  it,  and  as  it  manifests  itself  in  its  present 
operation  in  us.  St.  Paul  begins  his  most  perfect 
exposition  of  it  with  a  definition  from  each  of  these 
points  of  view,  and  we  shall  devote  a  chapter  to  each 
of  these  definitions. 

The  Epistle  to  the  Romans  opens  with  a  declaration 
of  the  Apostle's  separation  and  devotion  to  the  Gospel 
of  God,  which,  he  says,  is  concerning,  or  has  to  do 
with,  the  Son  of  God.  He  then  expresses  his  meaning 
of  the  Son  of  God  in  the  following  terms:  Who  was 
born  of  the  seed  of  David  according  to  the  flesh,  who 
was  declared  to  be  (Gr.  determined)  the  Son  of  God 
with  power,  according  to  the  spirit  of  holiness,  by  the 
resurrection  of  the  dead;  even  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord. 
As  preparatory  to  the  interpretation  of  these  words,  I 
wish  to  give  a  brief  exegesis,  not  of  any  particular 
passage  or  passages,  but  of  the  whole  mind  of  St.  Paul 
as  to  the  meaning  of  the  Gospel.  Human  salvation, 
which  is  the  burden  or  content  of  the  Gospel,  is  accord- 

31 


J 


32       The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

ing  to  him,  not  merely  the  result  of,  but  —  res  ipsa  — 
the  thing  itself  which  was  wrought  by  Jesus  Christ  in 
and  for  humanity.  He  saved  humanity  by  making  it, 
first  in  Him  and  then  in  itself,  son  of  God;  thus  raising 
it  out  of  itself  and  sin  and  death  into  God  and  hohness 
and  life.  The  essential  question  involved  is  this:  Is 
life,  in  the  true  sense  of  it,  eternal  hfe,  the  life  which 
Jesus  Christ  Himself  claims  to  be  and  to  give,  —  is 
that  life  nature-determined,  or  self-determined,  or 
God-determined,  in  us.?  Jesus  Christ  —  in  Himself 
first,  and  then  in  us  —  means  not  a  nature-determined 
nor  a  self-determined  but  a  God-determined  life  in 
humanity.  He  is  God  our  Life,  just  as  He  is  God 
our  holiness,  God  our  righteousness,  etc.  That  fulness 
of  the  life  of  God  first  in  Jesus  Christ  and  then  in 
humanity  through  Him  is  just  what  makes  Him  and 
it  Son  of  God.  But  the  life  or  the  sonship  of  Jesus 
Christ  is  ours  only  because  in  Him  it  is  God-wrought 
in  humanity;  and  He  Himself  is  not  only  the  divine 
God-working  but  the  human  God-worked,  the  humanity 
madey  become,  son  of  God.  Forever  there  will  be  the 
questioning  whether  Jesus  Christ  as  our  salvation  is  so 
actively  or  passively,  salvatio  salvans  or  salvatio 
salvata,  God  saving  or  man  saved,  evdeo?  avOpoiiro^  or 
ivdv9poyjro<s  6e6<s.  Is  He  the  divine  grace  by  which  we 
are  saved  or  the  human  faith  and  obedience  through 
which  we  are  saved  ?  Is  He  God  or  we  in  our  salva- 
tion ?  The  answer  must  be  that  He  is  both,  and  just 
that  being  both  is  what  constitutes  the  Incarnation. 
We  have  now,  however,  to  take  one  step  further  and 


The  Definition  of  the  Gospel  33 

show  that  while  the  spiritual  life  of  Jesus  Christ  as 
human  is  primarily  not  a  self-determined  but  a  God- 
determined  life,  yet  secondarily,  from  the  very  nature 
of  it,  it  cannot  be  God-determined  in  us  —  or  in  Him 
first  —  without  being,  humanly,  self-determined  also. 
We  cannot  remain  persons,  unless  our  personality,  in 
its  highest  activities  and  life,  retain  its  distinctive 
property  of  self-determination  or  freedom.  A  purely 
God-determined  Kfe  would  not  be  our  life.  Jesus 
Christ  was  not  man  if  he  had  not  a  human  will  and 
human  freedom.  And  His  holiness,  righteousness,  life, 
sonship  of  God,  were  not  human,  and  consequently  not 
ours,  if  they  were  not  the  object  and  the  product  of  a 
human  choice  and  self-determination  on  His  part. 
God  can  determine  free  will  and  personality  only 
through  that  which  is  its  own  act  and  activity,  only 
in  that  which  is  coequally  its  own  self-determination. 
The  mystery  of  the  harmony  of  grace  and  freedom  is 
only  a  part  of  the  larger  one  of  the  metaphysical  co- 
existence and  reconciliation  of  freedom  and  necessity. 
But  that  which  is  most  obscure  to  reason  may  be  most 
self-evident  to  experience,  and  the  fact  remains  that 
the  highest  act  of  God  in  us  is  also  the  highest  activity 
of  ourselves ;  and  that  which  is  nought  if  not  God  in  us, 
is  equally  nought  if  it  is  not  ourselves  in  God. 

We  pass  over,  then,  for  another  occasion  and  connec- 
tion the  consideration  of  a  higher  personality  or  a 
higher  sonship  in  our  Lord,  to  affirm  that  the  imme- 
diate question  with  St.  Paul  was  how  humanity  in  Him 
became  or  was  made  son  of  God  —  how  He  Himself 


34       The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

as  man  became  or  was  made  Son  of  God.  For  the 
process  by  which  man  is  made  divine  was  first  enacted 
in  Him,  and  He  Himself  became  Son  in  the  way  in 
which  we  must  become  sons  of  God.  And  this  brings 
us  back  to  St.  Paul's  account  of  what  I  must  beheve 
is  the  genesis  or  rationale  of  our  Lord's,  and  our 
human  sonship  to  God. 

Jesus  Christ  was  born  of  the  seed  of  David  according 
to  the  flesh.  He  had  a  human  derivation  which  iden- 
tified Him  with  humanity  from  David,  from  Abraham, 
from  Adam.  According  to  the  flesh  means  according 
to  the  common  natural  humanity  into  which  we  are 
all  born  and  to  which  we  are  all  Umited  by  nature. 
What  the  Apostle  is  going  to  contrast  with  this  in  the 
words  according  to  the  spirit  is  what  humanity  was 
made  or  became  in  Him  —  that  is,  Son  of  God.  All 
through  St.  Paul,  to  be  in  the  flesh  means  to  be  in 
ourselves,  what  we  are;  to  be  in  the  spirit  is  to  be  in 
Christ,  what  He  is.  To  be  in  the  spirit  is  to  say  with 
the  Apostle  himself,  I  live  no  longer,  Christ  lives  in 
me.  The  question  of  the  Gospel  is  how  with  our  Lord 
so  to  die  to  ourselves  as  to  live  to  God.  And  the  way 
in  which  we  are  by  that  new  birth  of  death  and  resur- 
rection to  attain  to  the  new  life  of  divine  sonsliip  and 
the  divine  nature  is  the  way  by  which  He  did  it. 
That  Way  of  Truth  and  Life  is  the  Gospel,  and  the 
mode  or  process  of  it  is  expressed  for  us  in  the  passage 
before  us  in  divinely  exact  terms. 

The  principle  especially  to  be  emphasized  in  the 
discussion  before  us  is  this:  that  Jesus  Christ  Himself, 


The  Definition  of  the  Gospel  35 

or  the  work  wrought  by  Him  in  humanity,  which  is 
the  matter  of  the  Gospel,  may  with  equal  truth  and 
propriety  be  expressed  in  terms  of  God  and  in  terms 
of  man.  We  may  regard  Him  as  God  saving  or  as 
man  saved.  We  may  describe  what  took  place  in  Him 
not  only  as  what  God  has  done  for  us,  but  as  God 
Himself  doing  for  or  in  us;  and  on  the  other  hand 
we  may  describe  it  as  humanity,  in  Him  as  man, 
doing  for  itself  in  God,  becoming  or  being  made,  by 
its  own  faith  in  God's  grace  in  it.  Son  of  God.  Now 
I  contend  that  the  Apostle  is  here  describing  our  Lord's 
sonship  in  terms  of  that  humanity  which  in  Him,  and 
by  His  act  in  it,  became,  was  made,  and  made  itself, 
Son  of  God.  The  question  of  how  man,  any  man, 
becomes  son  of  God  is  answered  in  the  person  of  the 
universal  man,  the  Son  of  man.  As  St.  John  describes 
it,  the  power  as  well  as  right,  the  grace  or  gift  to  us, 
to  become  sons  of  God  comes  to  us  through  One  who 
not  only  as  God  brought  it  down  from  heaven,  but  as 
man  earned  and  exhibited  it  here  on  earth.  The  faith 
by  which  we  share  it  with  Him  is  not  only  ours  in  Him 
but  His  in  us  —  the  perfect  faith  through  which  by  a 
perfect  grace  He  Himself  as  man  was  born,  not  of 
blood,  nor  of  the  will  of  the  flesh,  nor  of  the  will  of 
man,  but  of  God.  And  so  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews 
describes  Him  as  the  great  Saint  of  saints,  the  Captain 
and  Perfecter  of  the  faith  which  sanctifies,  which  as  it 
imparts  to  us  the  divine  nature  makes  us  all  the  sons 
of  God.  The  how  of  this  human  sonship,  first  realized 
and  revealed  in  Him  who,  by  His  death  and  resurrec- 


36       The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

tion,  was  the  first-born  from  the  dead,  was  the  point  in 
St.  Paul's  mind.  The  fact  that  in  Jesus  Christ,  the 
author  and  source  of  it,  we  must  see  not  only  man 
begotten  but  God  begetting,  is  another  point  which 
elsewhere  and  otherwise  is  fully  recognized  by  the 
Apostle,  but  it  is  tliis  thought  which  he  proceeds  to 
develop  here. 

As  we  were  from  the  beginning  predetermined  to 
sonship  through  Jesus  Christ  unto  God,  so  are  we  in 
the  actual  process  in  time  determined  —  in  the  tech- 
nical sense  of  the  English  word,  but  the  primary  and 
natural  sense  of  the  Greek  (see  margin  of  the  Revised 
Version).  It  is  true  that  Jesus  Christ  was  by  His 
resurrection  from  the  dead  proved  or  declared  to  be, 
designated,  instated  or  installed,  Son  of  God.  But 
even  if  any  one  of  these  were  the  immediate  meaning 
here,  we  must  fall  back  upon  the  sense  that  He  was 
revealed  to  be  only  so  much  as  He  became  through 
the  resurrection.  The  resurrection  in  itself  in  no  wise 
proved  or  declared  Him  Son  of  God  in  the  metaphysical 
sense.  All  that  was  actually  expressed  in  it,  as  such, 
was  this  —  humanity,  by  act  of  God  in  it,  raised  out 
of  sin  and  death  into  the  holiness  and  life  of  God, 
become  Son  of  God  and  partaker  of  the  divine  nature 
by  death  to  itself  and  a  new  life  in  God.  What  is 
imparted  to  the  definition  by  the  particular  word 
determined  —  "  determined  Son  of  God  in  power,  ac- 
cording to  the  spirit  of  hoUness,  by  the  resurrection 
from  the  dead  "  —  is  as  follows :  In  reality,  it  is  only  a 
logical  distinction  which  has  no  counterpart  in  fact 


The  Definition  of  the  Gospel  37 

which  we  make  between  what  God  predetermined  in 
thought  and  determines  in  act  or  process.  The  truth 
is,  that  our  Hfe  —  above  all,  our  more  immediately 
divine  Hfe,  our  life  in  Christ  —  whether  viewed  by  us 
as  predetermined  in  eternity  or  determined  in  time,  is 
not  of  nature  or  of  ourselves  but  of  God.  It  is  an  act 
of  God  in  us,  manifested  as,  and  existing  only  as,  an 
act  of  ourselves  in  God.  It  is  an  act  equally  of  divine 
determination,  a  hfe  of  God  in  us,  and  of  our  own 
self-determination,  a  life  of  ourselves  in  God.  In  this 
divine-human  life  it  is  not  part  God  and  part  we,  but 
all  God  and  all  we,  —  just  as  Jesus  Christ  Himself  is 
not  God  in  some  acts  and  man  in  others,  but  equally 
God  and  equally  man  in  every  act  of  His  human  life. 
But  the  special  point  to  be  observed  here,  as  the  re- 
mainder of  the  definition  vdll  plainly  show,  is  that  the 
sonship  which  is  the  Gospel  is  precisely  to  be  defined 
in  Jesus  HimseK  as  it  is  to  be  defined  in  us.  He 
is  in  Himself  first  everything  which  we  are  to  be  in 
Him,  and  in  the  perfect  way  in  which  we  are  to  be 
it  in  Him.  His  life,  which  is  ours,  is  what  it  is 
not  by  mere  fact  of  nature,  whether  human  or  divine. 
Neither  was  it  by  His  own  act  in  the  nature;  for  the 
human  nature  in  which  He  acted  had  its  limitations 
for  Him,  and  to  have  imported  into  it  the  freedom 
from  limitation  of  the  divine  nature  would  have  been 
to  contradict  and  nullify  it.  His  life,  as  truly  as  ours 
and  only  far  more  perfectly,  was  a  life  not  of  nature 
nor  of  Himself  but  of  God;  a  life  as  of  perfect  faith  in 
God,  so  of  perfect  grace  from  God.     He  knew  better 


38       The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

than  any  of  us  to  say:  All  that  is  mine  is  not  mine, 
but  His  that  sent  me.  I  can  of  myself  do  nothing. 
My  father  worketh  and  I  work.  I  and  my  Father  are 
one. 

When  St.  Paul  goes  on  to  say  of  Jesus  Christ  that 
He  was  determined  Son  of  God  in  power^  according  to 
the  spirit,  etc.  —  very  much  depends  upon  the  nature 
of  that  power.  We  must  remember  that  just  exactly 
that  which  we  have  not  by  nature  or  in  ourselves,  and 
the  gift  or  addition  of  which  to  us  by  grace  is  the  Gospel 
of  Jesus  Christ,  is  the  power  to  become  sons  of  God. 
The  whole  inability  and  failure  of  the  Law  to  save  us 
turns  upon  our  own  want  of  power  to  be  or  do  what  it 
bids  us  —  not  as  claim  on  its  part  but  as  privilege  and 
blessing  on  ours.  The  whole  Old  Testament  dispen- 
sation came  to  an  end  for  want  of  power  truly  to  make 
us  children  of  God.  The  last  and  greatest  of  the 
prophets  confessed  his  impotency  to  baptize  with  the 
power  necessary  to  impart  the  new  birth  and  the  new 
life  of  the  children  of  God.  We  shall  see  in  the  next 
chapter  that  the  definition  of  the  Gospel  from  the 
standpoint  of  its  operation  in  us  is  that  It  is  the  power 
of  God  unto  salvation  to  every  one  who  believes.  It 
makes  no  difference  whether  we  connect  in  power  with 
determined  or  with  Son  of  God.  God  determines  us 
to  sonship  by  the  spirit  of  holiness  which  He  imparts, 
by  the  enabling  and  victorious  power  of  His  Spirit 
manifested  in  our  spirit,  in  our  power  to  be  holy. 
And  equally  we  are  sons  of  God  by  power  and  fact  of 
that  holiness  in  us,  which  is  participation  in  the  divine 


The  Definition  of  the  Gospel  39 

nature  and  so  the  very  essence  and  matter  of  divine 
sonship.  As  the  power  of  God  manifested  in  our 
Lord's  own  resurrection  was  not  an  external  divine 
operation  upon  Him,  but  a  divine  operation  within 
Him,  manifesting  itself  in  His  own  power  to  overcome 
sin  and  death  and  to  arise  out  of  the  universal  condition 
of  humanity  before  Him  into  participation  in  the  spirit 
and  life  of  God,  so  is  the  very  res  of  the  Gospel  for  us 
the  divine  gift  in  Him  of  participation  in  that  self-same 
resurrection  and  ascension. 

The  development  or  determination  of  sonship  in 
Jesus  Christ,  through  the  divine  power  in  Him,  is 
next  defined  as  not  according  to  the  flesh  but  according 
to  the  spirit.  It  is  not  a  natural  but  a  spiritual  sonship. 
We  are  not  born  in  it  from  below,  but  re-bom  in  it 
from  above.  This  does  not  militate  against  the  other 
sense  in  which  we  are  sons  of  God  by  nature.  If  there 
were  not  the  basis  of  a  natural  relationship  and  aflSnity 
with  God,  there  would  be  no  place  or  possibility  for 
the  actual  spiritual  relationship  with  Him  into  which 
we  are  called  to  enter.  The  very  fact  of  our  predesti- 
nation from  the  beginning  to  sonship  means  that  our 
nature  is  constituted  for  sonship.  God  has  made  us 
for  Himself  and  we  shall  find  no  rest  until  we  rest  in 
Him.  But  neither  in  the  Christianity  of  the  New 
Testament  nor  in  the  facts  of  the  Christian  life  can  I 
find  any  more  meaning  in  the  so-called  natural  sonship 
of  man  than  this,  that  man  is  constituted  by  his  nature 
—  not  son  of  God,  but  —  to  become  son  of  God.  That 
is,  it  is  his  nature  to  enter,  beyond  his  nature,  and 


40       The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

outside  of  himself,  into  an  objective,  transcendental, 
personal  or  spiritual  relationship  with  God,  of  which 
will  be  born  his  sonship.  All  of  son  that  there  is  in 
him  consists  in  his  capacity  to  become  son;  the  actual 
sonship  is  not  of  himself  but  of  the  Father  in  him. 
If  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  there  is  in  all  of  us,  no  matter 
how  inchoately,  some  sense  and  motion  of  the  divine 
fatherhood  and  our  own  sonship,  it  is,  I  believe,  be- 
cause there  is  in  us  all  some  stirrings  of  actual  inter- 
action over  and  above  the  merely  potential  interrelation 
between  God  and  us.  But,  however  that  may  be,  the 
thing  spoken  of  here  is  a  sonship  of  man  to  God,  first 
realized  and  brought  to  perfection  in  Jesus  Christ,  who 
thus  becomes  to  us  the  Spiritual  Man,  Man  in  perfect 
personal  relation  to  the  personal  God,  Son  of  God,  in 
whom  all  divine  Fatherhood  is  fulfilled  and  expressed 
in  the  coequal  correlative  of  a  universal  Sonship. 

The  addition  in  the  definition  of  the  next  term  is 
most  exactly  pertinent  and  significant.  We  are,  or  our 
Lord  was,  determined  Son  of  God  in  power,  according 
to  the  spirit  of  holiness.  The  spirit  of  man,  the  God- 
related  part  in  him,  —  as  the  flesh  is  the  nature-related 
and  self -related  part,  —  needs  to  be  designated  not  only 
by  itself  but  by  its  function.  And  the  function  of  the 
spirit  is  holiness;  it  is  that  in  us  in  and  through  which 
we  may  be  partakers  of  the  divine  spirit  and  the  divine 
nature.  If  not  etymologically,  yet  actually  and  prac- 
tically in  its  New  Testament  use,  hoHness  means  a 
personal  participation  in  the  personal  Spirit,  in  the 
spiritual  disposition,  character,  and  nature  of  God, 


The  Definition  of  the  Gospel  41 

We  define  what  holiness  is  by  defining  what  God  is. 
If,  says  St.  John,  we  are  born  of  God  and  are  sons  of 
God,  then  we  have  the  Spirit  of  God  and  are  of  the 
spirit  that  God  Himself  is  of.  And  if  God  is  Love, 
then  is  holiness,  which  is  the  spirit  and  nature  of 
God  in  us,  love  also.  The  Greek  virtue  is  an  ideal, 
rather  aesthetic  than  ethical,  of  highest  and  most  beauti- 
ful manhood.  The  Hebrew  righteousness  carries  with 
it  primarily  the  conception  of  conformity  to  an  out- 
ward law,  with  them  the  highest  and  most  universal 
law,  the  law  of  God.  The  holiness  of  Christianity  is 
an  inward  spirit,  the  Spirit  of  God,  the  divine  nature. 
St.  Paul,  who  is  the  opposite  of  legal,  the  great  opponent 
of  legalism,  has  made  the  legal  thing  righteousness 
rather  than  the  evangelical  thing  holiness  the  theme  of 
his  exposition  of  Christianity.  But  his  characteristic 
contention  that  righteousness  is  not  by  nature  nor  by 
law,  but  of  God  by  His  Spirit,  is  practically  an  argu- 
ment to  prove  that  there  is  no  true  righteousness,  as 
indeed  no  highest  manhood,  but  in  holiness,  —  that  is 
to  say,  in  participation  in  the  life  of  God. 

It  is  the  last  word  of  St.  Paul's  definition  of  the 
Gospel  of  God  in  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ  which  gives 
the  most  distinctive  touch  to  his  own  conception  and 
exposition  of  it.  The  sonship  realized  by  and  in  Christ 
was  reahzed  through  His  death  and  resurrection.  The 
truth  involved  in  that  fact  is  this :  that  all  actual  spiritual 
sonship  to  God,  all  holiness,  all  divine  spirit  and  life 
in  us,  is  not  only  a  regeneration  but  a  resurrection. 
Not  only  does  it  come  not  from  nature  nor  from  our- 


42     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

selves  but  from  God  —  but  it  requires  an  act  on  our 
part  of  renunciation  of  nature  and  of  ourselves,  a  free, 
personal,  and  spiritual  death  to  nature  and  ourselves 
and  a  new  given  and  risen  life  of  God,  received  and 
made  our  own  by  faith.  This  will  be  so  constantly 
with  us  as  we  follow  the  Apostle  through  his  thought 
of  the  Gospel  that  we  need  pursue  it  no  further  here. 
The  point  with  which  I  close  at  present  is  this:  The 
Gospel  as  distinctively  such  is  not  alone  what  our 
Lord  was  in  His  pre-existent  eternity;  it  is  not  an 
individual  and  solitary  act  performed  for,  apart  from, 
and  instead  of,  ourselves.  It  is  best  understood  and 
best  interpreted  as  the  consummate  act  in  which  — 
God  in  man  and  man  in  God  —  each  perfectly  fulfilled 
himself  in  the  other,  God  becoming  actively  the  holi- 
ness, righteousness,  and  life  of  man,  and  man,  passively 
as  from  God  but  actively  in  all  else,  becoming  the  holi- 
ness, righteousness,  and  life  of  God ;  as  St.  Paul  says. 
That  we  might  become  the  righteousness  of  God  in 
Him  (Christ).  It  is  out  of  death  and  resurrection  that 
humanity  in  Christ  was,  as  in  itself  it  must  be,  deter- 
mined Son  of  God  in  power,  according  to  the  spirit  of 
holiness. 


IV 


THE  FURTHER  DEFINITION  OF 
THE    GOSPEL 


I  am  not  ashamed  of  the  Gospel:  for  it  is  the  power  of  God  to 
every  one  that  beheveth:  to  the  Jew  first,  and  also  to  the  Greek. 
For  therein  is  revealed  a  righteousness  of  God  by  faith  unto  faith: 
as  it  is  written,  But  the  righteous  shall  live  by  faith.  —  Romans  I. 
16,  17. 

If  thou  shalt  confess  with  thy  mouth  Jesus  as  Lord,  and  shalt  be- 
lieve in  thine  heart  that  God  raised  Him  from  the  dead,  thou  shalt 
be  saved:  for  with  the  heart  man  believeth  unto  righteousness.  — 
Romans  X.  9,  10. 


IV 


THE   FURTHER   DEFINITION    OF   THE 
GOSPEL 

After  one  of  the  most  perfect  of  those  personal 
approaches  by  which  the  Apostle  always  comes  in  the 
most  natural  way  to  the  subject  of  his  epistles,  St.  Paul 
in  Rom.  i.  16,  17,  states  with  scientific  definiteness  and 
clearness  the  theme  not  only  of  this  special  epistle  but 
of  his  entire  exposition  of  the  Gospel.  This  he  does 
in  a  second  definition,  at  bottom  identical  with  the 
first  but  differing  from  it  in  this,  that  whereas  the  former 
viewed  the  Gospel  as,  to  us,  objectively  completed  and 
existing  in  the  individual  person  of  our  Lord,  the 
present  one  defines  it  as  subjectively  in  process  in  us. 
The  Gospel,  he  says,  is  the  power  of  God  unto  salva- 
tion to  every  one  that  believeth.  For  therein  is  re- 
vealed a  righteousness  of  God  from  faith  to  faith. 
We  have  here  an  exact  statement  of  all  the  principal 
"causes"  which  both  determine  and  define  the  thing 
under  consideration.  The  final  cause  or  end  of  the 
Gospel  is  human  salvation.  Its  efficient  or  determining 
cause  is  the  Spirit  or  grace  or  power  of  God  operating 
in  us.  The  apprehending  or  receptive  cause  on  our 
part  is  faith.     The  material  cause,  or  matter,  of  salva- 

45 


46     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

tion,  and  so  of  the  Gospel,  is  righteousness, — which 
again  is  from  God,  through  faith. 

We  have,  perhaps,  in  the  previous  chapter,  suffi- 
ciently dwelt  upon  the  Gospel  as  a  power,  and  we  shall 
have  occasion  to  elucidate  yet  further  that  aspect  of  it. 
The  words  specially  contributed  by  the  present  defi- 
nition to  our  understanding  of  the  matter  are  just  those 
which  most  belong  to  it  on  its  human  side,  —  salva- 
tion and  faith.  The  end  or  work  of  the  Gospel  is  the 
salvation  of  man;  and  that  salvation  consists  in  a 
righteousness  which  he  finds  or  attains  not  in  himself 
but  in  God.  And  he  finds  and  possesses  it  there 
through  faith  in  Jesus  Christ,  who  is  God  his  right- 
eousness: the  way  to  salvation  is  the  way  of  faith; 
man  believes  unto  righteousness.  The  righteous  shall 
live  of  or  through  faith,  which  apprehends  and  appro- 
priates to  itself  the  righteousness  and  Hfe  of  God  as 
given  or  made  ours  in  Christ. 

But  there  are  some  other  words  of  the  definition 
which  require  a  truer  understanding.  In  the  first 
place,  the  word  Gospel  itself  is  too  commonly  (though 
often  unavoidably)  used  in  a  way  wliich  brings  to  us 
the  divine  matter  of  it  at  second  or  even  third  hand 
instead  of  at  first.  The  Gospel  is  not  our  preaching 
of  Christ's  teaching  of  God's  message  to  us  of  love 
and  hfe.  The  very  differentia  of  the  Gospel  from  any 
other  good  news  or  information  is  that  this  is  a  com- 
munication from  God,  and  is  a  direct  and  immediate 
utterance  of  the  Divine  Word  Himself.  In  the  Gospel 
God  is  the  Speaker,  and  His  Word  is  not  as  the  words 


Further  Definition  of  the  Gospel  47 

of  men  —  the  mere  symbol  or  inadequate  expression  of 
the  thing  they  mean;  rather  is  it  the  Thing  Itself  He 
means.  Jesus  Christ  Himself  is  God's  Word,  and  He 
is  no  mere  proclamation  to  us  of  a  divine  righteousness 
or  life;  rather  is  He  Himself  the  Divine  Righteousness 
and  the  Divine  Life  which  not  only  in  Him  but  as 
Himself  God  proclaims  to  the  world  as  its  supreme 
glad  tidings.  The  true  Gospel,  then,  is  not  something 
of  ours  about  God  or  Christ,  it  is  God  in  Christ  our 
salvation,  because  our  holiness,  our  righteousness,  our 
eternal  life. 

When  therefore  it  is  said  in  our  definition  that  in 
the  Gospel  there  is  revealed  a  righteousness  of  God,  I 
take  it  in  its  highest  sense  and  interpretation  to  mean 
that  in  Jesus  Christ  Himself,  as  God's  Word  and 
Gospel,  God  reveals  Himself  as  our  righteousness  and 
our  life.  But  in  the  divine-human  righteousness  which 
is  Himself,  Jesus  Christ  is  not  only  God's  but  our 
righteousness,  not  only  God  in  us  but  we  in  God. 
And  if  our  righteousness,  as  human,  is  necessarily  of 
faith,  so  His  righteousness,  on  its  human  side,  must 
have  been  of  faith.  And  so  it  was ;  the  resurrection  of 
Jesus  Christ  was  the  perfect  victory  of  the  spirit  over 
the  flesh,  of  faith  over  sense  and  the  world.  It  is  in 
that  sense  that  He  was  the  author  and  finisher  of  our 
faith,  and  so  of  the  righteousness  and  the  life  which 
come  to  us  from  God  through  faith. 

We  may  return  now  to  a  consideration  of  the  proper 
function  or  activity  of  faith  in  the  operation  of  our 
salvation.     And  in  the  study  of  this  we  shall  be  able 


48     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

to  illustrate  more  practically  the  meaning  and  truth  of 
the  Gospel  as  a  power  of  God.  Perhaps  no  passage 
will  better  serve  our  purpose  than  that  in  the  Epistle 
to  the  Ephesians  in  which  the  Apostle  prays  that  the 
eyes  of  our  heart  may  be  enlightened,  that  we  may 
know  what  is  the  hope  of  God's  calling,  what  the  riches 
of  the  glory  of  His  inheritance  in  the  saints,  and  what 
the  exceeding  greatness  of  His  power  to  usward  who 
believe,  according  to  the  working  of  the  strength  of 
His  might  which  He  wrought  in  Christ,  when  He 
raised  Him  from  the  dead,  and  made  Him  to  sit  at 
His  right  hand  in  heavenly  places.  The  greatness 
of  His  power  to  usward  who  believe  is  manifestly  a 
spiritual  power,  the  Spirit  of  God  in  our  spirit  impart- 
ing to  us  the  power  of  God,  the  power  of  Jesus  Christ, 
the  power  of  holiness  and  righteousness  and  eternal 
life,  the  power  to  overcome  sin  and  to  be  victorious 
even  over  death.  And  this  spiritual  power  of  hoHness 
and  hfe  in  us,  wrought  by  God's  grace  through  our 
faith,  is  identified  in  kind  with  the  working  of  the 
strength  of  His  might  which  God  wrought  in  Christ 
when  He  raised  Him  from  the  dead.  That  is,  the 
resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ  Himself  was  the  realization 
and  manifestation  of  a  new  divine  power  in  humanity 
—  in  the  might  of  the  spirit  to  transcend  the  natural 
possibiUties  of  the  flesh  and  to  attain  the  life  and  free- 
dom of  the  children  of  God.  The  resurrection  of  our 
Lord  was  therefore,  as  ours  must  be,  on  its  human  side 
an  act  of  faith  in  God,  as  on  the  divine  side  it  was  an 
operation  of  the  power  of  God,  or  of  grace,  in  humanity. 


Further  Definition  of  the  Gospel        49 

The  saving  faith  of  Christianity  is  not  a  vague  or 
general  belief  in  the  wisdom,  power,  and  goodness  of 
God.  Such  a  general  and  undefined  implicit  confi- 
dence and  trust  in  His  love  and  love-purpose  concerning 
us  is  the  proper  enough  attitude  of  our  finite  spirits 
toward  the  Father  of  spirits,  but  that  is  not  the  Gospel. 
The  Gospel  was  a  definite  promise  and  is  a  well-defined 
and  specific  gift  of  God  to  man.  It  comes  to  us  not 
in  human  words  but  in  the  eternal  personal  Word  of 
God,  who  is  God  Himself  in  fulfilment  of  the  promise 
and  in  communication  of  the  gift  to  us  of  Himself. 

Our  faith  should  be  the  exact  correlative  of  God's 
grace  or  gift.  The  faith  that  saves  to  the  uttermost  is 
a  faith  which  clearly  apprehends  in  Christ  Jesus  and 
wholly  appropriates  to  itself  the  visible  power  of  God 
actually  manifested  in  human  salvation.  To  the  eye 
of  faith  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ  is  its  own 
salvation  realized  and  revealed.  It  is  its  own  proved 
power  in  the  spirit  to  overcome  and  survive  the  weak- 
nesses and  evils  of  the  flesh,  to  find  refuge  from  the 
deficiencies  and  insufficiencies  and  shortcomings  of 
itself  in  the  all-sufficiency  and  the  self-fulfilment  of 
God.  If,  says  St.  Paul,  we  will  confess  with  our 
mouth  Jesus  as  Lord,  and  will  with  our  heart  believe 
that  God  raised  Him  from  the  dead,  we  shall  be  saved. 
If  Jesus  is  indeed  Lord  of  our  minds,  our  hearts,  our 
wills,  our  fives ;  if  we  see  in  Him  all  that  we  ought  to, 
and  would,  know  and  love  and  do  and  be;  and  if  we 
apprehend  and  appropriate  to  ourselves  all  the  divine 
presence  and  power  that  Kfted  Him,  in  order  that  it 


50     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

might  lift  us  in  Him,  out  of  the  sin  and  death  of  the 
world  into  the  holiness  and  life  of  God, — then  not  only 
shall  we  be  saved  in  fact,  but  are  we  already  saved  in 
faith.  For  faith  in  the  Word  of  God  is  a  present 
possession  of  future  things. 

The  above  is  the  precise  thought  of  St.  Peter,  who 
says  of  our  Lord  that  He  was  foreknown  indeed  before 
the  foundation  of  the  world,  but  was  manifested  at  the 
end  of  the  times  for  our  sake,  who  through  Him  are 
believers  in  God,  which  raised  Him  from  the  dead  and 
gave  Him  glory;  so  that  our  faith  and  hope  might  be 
in  God.  To  be  through  Him  believers  in  God,  that 
our  faith  and  hope  shall  be  in  God,  means  that  we  see 
in  Jesus  Christ  the  thing  that  we  are  to  believe,  that 
we  accept  in  His  resurrection  our  own  accomplished 
and  assured  salvation  from  sin  and  eternal  death. 

So  much  for  the  definite  meaning  and  function  of 
faith  in  the  actual  operation  in  us  of  the  Gospel  of 
Jesus  Christ.  It  is  very  true  that  nothing  is  said  in  so 
many  terms  of  the  death  and  resurrection  of  our  Lord 
in  the  definition  we  are  discussing,  but  it  is  nevertheless 
manifest  from  the  whole  tenor  of  St.  Paul's  teaching 
that  the  power  of  God  exercised  in  human  salvation  is 
the  power  of  God  revealed  in  Christ's  resurrection,  and 
that  the  essential  truth  of  that  resurrection  is  humanity's 
own  God-wrought  and  self-wrought  victory  over  sin 
and  death. 

That  human  salvation  is  not  a  natural  thing  but 
primarily  a  moral  thing,  not  a  mere  fact  of  man's 
nature  but  essentially  an  act  of  himself,  that  it  can 


Further  Definition  of  the  Gospel        51 

come  to  him  only  through  a  process  of  self-reaHzation 
and  fulfilment,  is  the  result  and  condition  of  his  con- 
stitution as  a  person.  Personality  comes  only  by 
self-generation;  that  which  is  not  of  the  self  in  the  man 
is  not  personal  or  himself.  This  truth  had  its  abundant 
recognition  in  the  Old  Testament.  It  is  only  righteous- 
ness, it  was  said,  that  saves  or  exalts  either  a  man  or 
a  nation.  And  righteousness  is  distinctively  not  a 
physical  or  mechanical  or  natural  but  a  moral  Tight- 
ness; a  right  attitude  and  habit  and  character  of  the 
will,  of  the  person,  of  the  man.  The  reason,  the  will, 
the  conscious,  free  self-determination  and  selfhood  of 
the  man  is  the  man.  Now  righteousness  is  a  matter 
of  right  relations,  and  the  Old  Testament  brought  the 
law  of  it  to  its  highest  possible  expression  when  it 
defined  the  spirit  and  letter  of  it  to  be  —  to  love  God 
supremely  and  one's  neighbor  as  one's  self.  I  suggested 
a  possible  surprise  that  St.  Paul  should  have  selected 
for  his  keyword  the  Old  Testament  righteousness 
instead  of  the  New  Testament  holiness^  or  St.  John's 
lije.  Either  of  the  three  indeed  carries  the  other  two 
with  it.  There  is  neither  participation  in  the  divine 
nature,  nor  fulfilment  of  the  divine  law,  nor  part  in 
the  divine  life,  by  itself  without  the  others.  And  Jesus 
is  equally  our  holiness,  our  righteousness,  and  our  life. 
Still  the  word  righteousness  carried  with  it  so  much 
the  association  of  mere  obedience  to  law  that  we  might 
have  expected  the  Apostle  who  was  to  expose  the  in- 
sufficiency of  mere  law,  even  the  divine  law,  for  human 
salvation,  to  eschew  it  for  the  higher  connotations  of 


52     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

spirit  and  life.  And  yet,  if  we  look  deeper,  we  may 
discover,  as  well  in  the  thing  itself  as  in  St.  Paul's 
special  mission,  a  sufficient  reason  for  its  selection. 
We  must  take  very  seriously  and  in  earnest  our  Lord's 
and  St.  Paul's  strong  declarations  that  the  Gospel 
comes  not  to  supersede  but  to  fulfil  and  establish  the 
law.  Indeed,  as  has  been  already  said,  the  Gospel  is 
the  Gospel  only  as  it  fulfils  the  law,  as  it  is  the  power 
of  God  in  us  to  be  what  God's  law,  which  is  our  own 
law,  constitutes  and  calls  upon  us  to  be.  Nothing  short 
of  that  will  be  our  hfe  or  our  blessedness,  or  consequently 
our  salvation. 

I  spoke  in  the  second  chapter  of  the  historical  disci- 
pHne  of  Judaism  under  the  law  as  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant presuppositions  and  preparations  of  Christianity. 
That  long  training,  according  to  St.  Paul,  was  not  merely 
to  convince  human  experience  of  the  weakness  and  un- 
profitableness of  the  law  as  a  means  of  spiritual  health 
and  life.  By  the  law  indeed  was  the  knowledge  of 
sin,  and  the  awakening  and  development  of  the  con- 
sciousness of  sin  was  the  most  immediate  precondition 
of  the  sense  of  need  and  the  possibihty  of  reception  of 
the  grace  of  holiness.  But  the  end  of  the  law  is  not 
alone  to  reveal  its  own  impotence  and  inefficiency.  It 
is  indeed  in  the  end  insufficient  and  unable  to  produce 
the  righteousness  it  requires  and  demands  of  us;  but 
what  but  for  the  law  should  we  know  of  righteousness 
at  all?  The  law  is  the  creation  and  expression  to  us 
of  righteousness.  It  is  in  the  deepest  and  highest  sense 
itself  righteousness;  and  Jesus  Christ  superseded  the 


Further  Definition  of  the  Gospel        53 

law  only  as  He  was  Himself  the  righteousness  of  the 
law  and  the  law  of  righteousness,  whereas  all  so-called 
laws  before  Him  were  only  imperfect  and  impotent 
human  symbols  or  letters  of  the  law.  But  not  only 
does  the  law  alone  primarily  give  us  the  conception 
and  knowledge  of  righteousness;  it  alone  awakens  or 
quickens  and  develops  in  us  the  moral  necessity  of 
ourselves  becoming  and  being  righteous.  The  truth 
that  righteousness  is  moral  or  personal  life,  and  that 
sin  is  death,  is  not  only  a  revelation  of  God  but  a  fact 
of  experience.  And  that  experience  comes  to  us  only 
through  the  experimental  tutelage  of  the  law.  It  is 
only  when  the  law  has  first  taught  effectually  the  lesson 
that  the  ultimate  necessity  of  personal  life  is  righteous- 
ness or  the  fulfilment  of  itself,  that  the  law  of  a  being 
is  but  the  expression  of  that  being's  perfection  and 
blessedness  —  it  is  only  then  that  the  law  can  impart 
the  further  truth  of  experience,  that  it  is  in  itself  in- 
sufficient to  produce  in  us  the  righteousness  it  prescribes 
and  requires  of  us.  The  fatal  misconception  that  the 
Gospel  is  something  done  for  us  or  instead  of  us,  and 
not  something  to  be  done  in  us  and  by  us;  or  again, 
that  it  is  something  to  be  done  only  in  us  and  not  by 
us,  is  an  error  so  great  as  practically  to  contradict  the 
nature  and  neutralize  the  effects  of  Christianity.  On 
the  contrary,  the  Gospel  is  the  power  of  God  to  be 
ourselves,  and  Jesus  Christ  has  it  in  Him  to  help  us 
only  as  He  can  enable  us  to  be  ourselves  what  He  is, 
and  to  do  for  ourselves  what  He  did.  If  we  do  not 
know  in  ourselves  the  power  of  His  resurrection,  or 


54     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

the  power  of  His  divine  righteousness,  we  do  not  know 
Him.  It  is  as  true  that  nothing  is  personally  ours  that 
is  not  of  ourselves,  as  it  is  that  nothing  of  holiness, 
righteousness,  or  life  can  be  of  ourselves,  or  ours, 
that  is  not  of  God.  Blessedness  is  above  all  else  an 
energy  or  activity  of  our  own  souls,  however  true  it  is 
also  that  it  is  an  energy  or  activity  of  God  in  our 
souls.  We  conclude,  therefore,  that  the  Gospel  is  as 
much  still  our  own  obedience  to  the  law,  as  it  is,  over 
and  above  that,  the  grace  or  power  of  God  to  attain 
that  obedience. 

We  can  see  from  the  above,  I  think,  why  it  is  that 
St.  Paul  retained  the  term  righteousness  as  the  Christian 
expression  of  that  spiritual  state,  attitude,  or  activity, 
the  attainment  of  which  is  salvation,  because  the 
possession  of  it  is  life  and  blessedness. 


THE  WRATH  OF  GOD  AGAINST 
SIN 


The  wrath  of  God  is  revealed  from  heaven  against  all  ungodliness 
and  unrighteousness  of  men,  who  hold  down  the  truth  in  unrighteous- 
ness. —  Romans  I.  18. 

Wherefore  thou  art  without  excuse,  O  man,  whosoever  thou  art 
that  judgest:  for  wherein  thou  judgest  another  thou  condemnest  thy- 
self; for  thou  that  judgest  dost  practise  the  same  things.  —  Romans 

n.  1. 

What  if  some  were  without  faith  ?  shall  their  want  of  faith  make 
the  faithfulness  of  God  of  none  effect?  God  forbid:  yea,  let  God 
be  found  true  but  every  man  a  liar.  —  Romans  III.  3. 


THE   WRATH   OF    GOD   AGAINST   SIN 

Perhaps  we  should  have  said  that  the  most  complete 
and  proper  presupposition  of  the  Gospel  was  the  fact, 
and  the  universal  fact,  of  sin.  And  yet,  I  do  not 
believe  that  the  coming,  or  the  primary  end  and  func- 
tion, of  the  Gospel  was  conditioned  upon  the  fact  of 
sin.  The  Gospel  of  the  Incarnation  means  the  com- 
pletion as  well  as  the  redemption  or  restoration  of 
humanity.  I  for  one,  speculatively  and  not  dogmati- 
cally, cannot  see  how  there  could  have  been  a  personal 
evolution  or  completion,  a  production  and  development 
of  holiness,  righteousness,  and  spiritual  life,  without 
what  we  call  the  fall,  without  an  experimental  coming 
to  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil,  of  sin  and  holiness, 
of  life  and  death.  I  cannot  see  how  there  could  have 
been  generated  in  us  the  sense  of  holiness  except  in 
reaction  against  a  sense  of  sin,  or  a  fact  of  holiness 
except  in  conflict  with  and  victory  over  an  actuality  of 
sin.  But  if  humanity  could  have  attained  spiritual 
completion  without  sin,  and  therefore  without  redemp- 
tion or  restoration,  I  hold  that  the  Gospel  of  Jesus 
Christ  would  have  been  as  necessary  for  that  as  in 
fact  it  was  for  that  and  the  other  also.     Man  is  essen- 

57 


58     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

tially  incomplete  without  God,  and  the  relation  to  God 
which  he  needs  for  his  completion  is  not  an  immanental 
unity  and  oneness  with  God  by  nature,  but  a  transcen- 
dental personal  union  and  fellowship  with  God  by 
grace  and  faith,  —  that  is,  by  the  mutual  spiritual 
intercommunion  and  intercommunication  of  love  and 
service,  which  is  the  life  of  God,  and  of  all  in  the 
universe  who  share  the  personal  or  spiritual  life  of 
God.  Jesus  Christ  is  human  completion  in  that  He 
is,  not  the  natural  unity,  whatever  it  be,  of  God  and 
man,  which  is  true  of  all  men,  but  the  personal  union 
and  fellowship  of  God  and  men,  which  is  perfectly 
true  only  in  Him  as  at  once  God  and  man,  and  is 
true  in  us  just  in  the  measure  of  our  knowledge  and 
participation  of  it  in  Him. 

Sin,  however,  is  in  the  world,  and  is  universal,  and 
there  is  no  deliverance  from  it  and  its  consequences 
except  in  a  divine  salvation.  And  the  Gospel  of  Jesus 
Christ  is  not  only  the  divine  proclamation  but  the 
divine  manifestation  and  fact  of  that  salvation.  What- 
ever may  be  thought  of  St.  Paul's,  either  traditional  or 
speculative,  account  of  the  origin  or  natural  history  of 
sin,  we  need  only  to  remember  that  all  that  is  material 
to  his  truth  of  the  Gospel  is  —  not  his  theories  but  his 
facts.  Those  facts  are,  that  sin  exists;  that  sin  is 
universal,  a  race  as  well  as  an  individual  fact,  insep- 
arable from  the  flesh  in  itself;  that  nevertheless  sin  is 
not  the  true  nature  or  law  of  humanity;  that  it  is  its 
death  and  not  its  life,  which  is  holiness;  that  humanity 
can  be  or  become  itself  only  through  a  redemption  or 


The  Wrath  of  God  Against  Sin        59 

salvation  from  sin  and  the  death  which  is  its  conse- 
quence; that  the  natural  condition  of  humanity  on  its 
spiritual  side  is  a  sense,  which  grows  with  the  growth 
of  the  spiritual  consciousness,  of  want  or  need,  which 
is  in  itself  a  prophecy  and  promise  of  the  divine  supply 
which  we  call  grace,  by  which  we  mean  the  personal 
knowledge  and  fellowship  of  God  Himself.  These  as 
far  as  they  go  are  the  materials  on  the  human  side  of 
which  the  Apostle  constructs  his  conception  of  the 
Gospel.  To  complete  the  picture,  in  anticipation,  we 
might  add  that  the  materials  on  the  other  side  are,  the 
eternal  love-nature  and  love-purpose  of  God;  the  pre- 
destination in  nature  itself,  as  well  as  in  the  mind  of 
God,  of  the  whole  creation  in  man  its  highest  part  to 
that  personal  participation  in  the  divine  spirit,  nature, 
and  life,  which  constitutes  him  son  of  God;  the  realiza- 
tion and  revelation  of  that  relation  in  the  individual 
person  of  Jesus  Christ;  the  provision  for  such  a  real 
and  vital  fellowship  with  Christ  and  participation  with 
Him  in  the  divine  power  of  His  life  as  to  make  us 
actually  in  Him  partakers  of  the  divine  nature,  and 
sons  of  God. 

I  have  given  the  above  preliminary  outline  of  the 
whole  Gospel  according  to  St.  Paul  only,  for  the  present, 
to  show  the  place  of  sin  in  it.  All  evil,  as  Kant  says 
in  substance,  is  primarily  spiritual  and  moral.  Extract 
the  sting  of  sin,  as  St.  Paul  teaches,  and  death  itself  is 
converted  from  a  supreme  evil  into  mere  transition  or 
birth  into  the  supreme  good.  Deliverance  from  the 
evil  of  sin  is  to  convert  all  other  curse  of  the  world  into 


60     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

blessing.  But  the  only  possible  exemption  or  redemp- 
tion for  a  personal  spirit  from  sin  is  through  its  own 
conquest  of  sin.  The  conquest  cannot  be  made  for  it, 
but  only  by  it;  because  in  its  own  conquest  alone  is  its 
hohness,  its  righteousness,  its  life.  The  victory  of  any 
other  can  be  for  it,  only  as  it  is  capable  of  being  made, 
and  will  be  made,  its  own  self -undertaken  and  self- 
accomplished  victory.  The  power  of  God  to  save  us 
actually  saves  us  only  as  it  is  made  our  power  to  save 
ourselves. 

To  revert  to  St.  Paul's  account  of  sin.  The  wrath  of 
God,  he  says,  is  revealed  from  heaven  against  all  un- 
godhness  and  unrighteousness  of  men.  In  what  way 
is  that  wrath  revealed  ?  There  is  no  better  illustration 
than  here  of  St.  Paul's  mental  habit  of  seeing  God's 
attitudes  or  acts  only  in  the  facts  of  nature  or  of  human 
experience,  that  is  to  say,  in  the  working  of  things. 
If,  as  Bishop  Butler  says,  all  experience  of  life  shows 
what  part  God  takes  in  it,  on  what  side  He  is,  viz. :  on 
the  side  of  righteousness  and  against  unrighteousness; 
if  the  agnosticism  even  of  Matthew  Arnold  can  see 
clearly  enough  that  the  power  not  ourselves  in  the  affairs 
of  men  makes  for  righteousness  only  and  wholly,  it 
was  not  too  much  for  the  more  spiritual  vision  of  St. 
Paul  to  discern  that  to  say  that  the  Righteous  Lord 
loveth  righteousness  can  mean  no  more  nor  less  than 
that  He  hates  unrighteousness.  And  indeed  no  terms 
can  express  too  strongly  the  wrath  of  God  actually 
revealed  in  nature  and  in  human  affairs  against  the 
ungodHness  and  unrighteousness  of  men  as  it  exists  in 


The  Wrath  of  Ood  Against  Sm        61 

the  world.  St.  Paul  expresses  himself  neither  other- 
wise than  as  the  actual  facts  revealed  nor  more  strongly 
than  the  actual  facts  justified.  Those  facts  were  no 
doubt  at  their  darkest  when  the  true  Light  dawned  in 
the  person  of  our  Lord,  and  St.  Paul  saw  and  described 
them  in  all  their  contrast  with  it.  Nevertheless  the 
facts  of  the  world  are  practically  the  same  always,  and 
the  contrasts  are  sufficient  still  to  mutually  exhibit  each 
other. 

The  material  points  in  the  Apostle's  treatment  of 
sin  we  may  briefly  consider.  The  first  is  a  very  essen- 
tial one  in  his  view  of  the  Gospel.  It  might  be  ex- 
pressed as  his  sense  of  the  relation  between  ungodliness 
and  unrighteousness.  It  is  identical  with  the  question 
still  with  us  of  the  mutual  dependence  or  independence 
of  morality  and  religion.  No  one  denies  the  possibility 
or  actuality  of  a,  relatively,  high  morality  in  a  non- 
religious  individual  person.  That  is  not  at  all  the 
question.  When  a  social  morality  exists,  whatever  or 
however  essential  may  be  the  causes  or  conditions  of 
its  existence,  it  may  nevertheless  exist  in  a  high  degree 
in  those  who  mentally  deny  or  contradict  those  condi- 
tions. The  true  question  is,  what  would  be  the  morahty 
or  moral  condition,  the  righteousness,  of  the  world  if 
there  were  no  such  thing  as  godliness,  if  man  were  not 
really  a  spiritual  and  religious  being,  and  were  not 
often,  in  his  better  types,  actually  more  religious  than 
is  consistent  with  his  own  theory,  or  than  he  knows  or 
thinks  himself  to  be.  At  any  rate  it  was  St.  Paul's 
conviction  that  man  is  a  spiritual  and  religious  being, 


62     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

in  the  sense  of  being  constituted  and  having  a  capacity 
and  a  need  for  spirituality  and  religion.  His  highest 
and  true  righteousness  is  not  a  mere  experimental 
matter  of  right  relations  with  things  and  persons  other 
than  himself,  rather  is  it  a  vastly  deeper  personal 
harmony  with  the  spirit  and  law  and,  what  these  in- 
clude and  imply,  the  Personality  and  personal  mean- 
ing and  purpose  of  the  universe.  Of  course  that 
conviction  is  at  the  very  root  of  the  Apostle's  central 
truth  —  that  righteousness  is  not  a  mere  law,  nor  even 
a  mere  abstract,  impersonal,  spirit,  but  the  Personal 
Spirit  of  the  living  God  in  us  and  become  our  spirit 
too,  God  Himself  our  as  well  as  His  own  righteousness. 
I  have  often  thought  that  in  the  Prayer  Book  there  is 
significance  and  point  in  the  very  mode  of  printing  the 
emphatic  words  in  the  Epistle  for  the  Sunday  before 
Advent,  as  though  it  were  an  inscription  upon  the  vcy 
portal  of  the  Church,  or  the  Church  Year:  This  is  His 
name  whereby  He  shall  be  called,  The  Lord  our 
Righteousness. 

It  is  not  merely  that  St.  Paul  connects  the  two  words 
together,  godliness  and  righteousness,  as  though  they 
belonged  so  —  spirit  and  body  of  one  and  the  same 
thing  —  but  he  explicitly  states  and  explains  the  fact 
of  their  genetic  connection.  Moral  corruption  is  the 
consequence  of  which  spiritual  perversion  is  the  cause. 
Wherefore,  he  says,  God  gave  them  up  in  the  lusts  of 
their  hearts  unto  uncleanness.  And  he  repeats.  For 
this  cause  God  gave  them  up  unto  vile  passions.  For 
what  cause  ?    For  this :  Even  as,  or  because,  they  saw 


The  Wrath  of  God  Against  Sin         63 

not  fit  to  have  God  in  their  mind,  God  gave  them  up  to 
an  unfit  or  reprobate  mind.  Like  every  other  part  of 
his  nature,  the  spiritual  or  God-related  nature  of  man 
is  liable  not  only  to  non-use  but  to  mis-use.  And  on 
the  principle  that  the  corruption  of  the  best  is  always 
the  worst,  the  perversion  of  the  spiritual  or  religious 
affections  and  passions  has  been  responsible  for  a  very 
large  part  of  the  evil  and  confusion  of  the  world. 
Superstition  and  idolatry,  fanaticism  and  spiritual  pride 
and  intolerance,  have  always  been  recognized  by  relig- 
ion itself  as  quite  as  possible  and  actual  in  the  world, 
and  often  even  more  positively  pernicious  and  injurious 
and  hateful,  as  a  mere  negative  unbelief  or  disbelief  of 
the  facts  of  the  spirit.  Much  of  the  immorality  which 
St.  Paul  so  graphically  describes  was  actually  asso- 
ciated with  so-called  religious  worship.  So  that  the 
Apostle  assigns  as  the  cause  of  the  universal  condition 
of  moral  corruption  in  the  world  the  universal  preva- 
lence not  so  much  of  no  religion  as  of  false  religion. 
We  must  remember,  however,  that  the  natural  and 
proper  remedy  for  false  religion,  for  the  untold  damage 
that  has  been  done  in  the  name  of  religion,  the  immeas- 
urable harm  and  hindrance  that  so-called  religion  has 
been  in  the  progress  of  human  affairs,  is  not  to  be  found 
in  an  impossible  abolition  of  religion,  but  in  the  bringing 
it,  as  it  devolves  upon  us  to  bring  everything  else  in  our 
lives,  to  its  true  meaning  and  function.  The  bodily 
passions,  the  selfish  impulses,  of  our  nature  have 
wrought  and  still  work  evil  enough  surely  in  the  world, 
but  who  dreams  of  abolishing  them  —  and  not  rather 


64     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

of  reducing  and  subordinating  them  to  the  reason  and 
end  of  their  existence  in  us  ?  In  the  knowledge  of  God 
stands,  and  will  forever  stand,  our  eternal  lives.  Only 
in  knowing  Him  can  we  know  ourselves,  and  only  in 
the  right  knowledge  of  Him,  which  is  not  a  mere 
conceptual  or  representative  but  an  experimental  and 
real  knowledge,  can  we  have  that  right  knowledge 
and  possession  and  direction  of  ourselves  which  is  the 
first  condition  of  rightness  or  righteousness  in  our 
lives. 

It  is  important,  too,  to  observe  in  detail  how  the 
wrath  as  well  as  the  approval  and  favor  of  God  mani- 
fests itself  in  the  actual  working  of  things.  What 
religion  recognizes  as  the  divine  sanctions  are  all 
attached  as  natural  consequences.  The  blessing  or 
the  curse  of  the  thing  is  always  sooner  or  later,  but 
inevitably  and  invariably,  in  the  thing  itself;  and  it  hes 
in  the  nature  of  the  thing  to  breed  or  multiply  itself 
and  so  to  be  forever  accumulating,  organizing,  and 
consolidating,  and  so  fixing  and  determining,  within 
itself  its  own  inherent  blessedness  or  accursedness. 
Nor  can  there  be  any  possible  exception  or  objection 
to  this  natural  working  of  things.  For  how  is  it  pos- 
sible that  the  divine  holiness,  righteousness,  and  life 
should  be  in  itself  and  in  all  its  consequences  a  per- 
fection and  blessedness  to  us,  and  that  the  opposite 
and  contradiction  of  all  these  should  not  be  a  corre- 
sponding imperfection  and  curse.?  What  can  God's 
love  and  approval  of  holiness  revealed  in  its  inherent 
blessedness  be  but  His  hatred  and  condemnation  of 


The  Wrath  of  God  Against  Sin        65 

sin  revealed  from  heaven  in  the  awful  logic  of  its 
visible  consequences  in  the  world? 

We  are  studying  the  Gospel  in  its  meaning  for  our- 
selves, and  it  is  unnecessary  for  our  purpose  here  to  go 
into  the  details  of  the  profound  and  overwhelming 
exposure  by  which,  himself  a  Jew,  St.  Paul  turns  the 
tables  against  the  Jews,  and  proves  that  for  all  their 
horror  of  the  corruption  of  the  Gentile  world  they 
themselves,  in  their  self-righteousness,  were  no  better. 
The  Jews  had  had,  as  the  pecuUar  people  of  God, 
greater  advantages  and  opportunities  —  advantages 
that  were  very  substantial  and  real,  and  that  had  been 
to  the  true  spiritual  children  of  Abraham,  the  Israelites 
indeed,  divine  preparations  and  helps.  But  what  use 
had  they  made  of  their  opportunity  ?  They  had  rested 
in  the  objective  possession  of  their  privileges,  without 
turning  them  to  the  subjective  use  or  account  for 
which  they  were  given.  They  were  Jews  outwardly 
and  not  inwardly;  and  their  circumcision  was  outward 
in  the  flesh,  in  the  letter,  and  not  that  of  the  heart,  in 
the  spirit;  whose  praise  is  not  of  men,  but  of  God. 

The  outcome  of  the  Apostle's  profound  reflections 
upon  a  whole  world  lying  thus  in  sin;  upon  the  utter 
failure  of  God's  own  people  as  a  whole  to  realize  the 
divine  promises  or  bring  about  the  divine  fulfilments; 
upon  the  universal  and  disastrous  collapse  of  the 
Gentiles,  under  natural  as  of  the  Jews  under  the  re- 
vealed law,  in  the  effort  to  manifest  the  righteousness 
which  was  their  own  as  well  as  God's  and  nature's 
law;  —  I  say  that  the  conclusion  of  St.  Paul's  thought 


66     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

upon  this  depressing  picture  is  one  which  we  might 
well  take  to  heart  still,  and  with  which  reassure  our- 
selves and  revive  our  drooping  faith  and  hope.  Is  the 
righteousness  of  God  dead  in  the  world  ?  No  indeed ! 
Let  every  man  be  a  liar,  and  God  is  still  true,  \^hat 
if  few,  or  even  none,  have  faith  ?  Shall  the  faithlessness 
of  man  defeat  the  faithfulness  of  God.^  Shall  the 
absence  of  human  faith  disprove  or  dissolve  the  divine 
objects  of  faith.?  No,  God's  promises  and  gifts  are 
there  still,  and  will  be  there  forever,  to  be  accepted  or 
rejected  for  salvation  or  condemnation,  for  life  or 
death.  But  more  than  that,  the  Apostle's  words  imply, 
if  they  do  not  directly  state,  not  only  that  the  good 
faith  or  faithfulness  of  God  shall  not  be  defeated  by 
the  faithlessness  of  man,  but  that  faith  in  God  shall 
not  be  brought  to  nought,  and  that  the  divine  righteous- 
ness and  life  shall  prevail  over  the  unbelief  and  indif- 
ference of  men. 


VI 
THE   NEW   RIGHTEOUSNESS 


They  are  all  under  sin;  as  it  is  written,  There  is  none  righteous, 
no,  not  one. 

Now  we  know  that  what  things  soever  the  law  saith,  it  speaketh 
to  them  that  are  under  the  law;  that  every  mouth  may  be  stopped, 
and  all  the  world  may  be  brought  under  the  judgment  of  God:  be- 
cause by  the  works  of  the  law  shall  no  flesh  be  justified  in  His  sight: 
for  through  the  law  cometh  the  knowledge  of  sin. 

But  now  apart  from  the  law  a  righteousness  of  God  hath  been  man- 
ifested, being  witnessed  by  the  law  and  the  prophets;  even  the  right- 
eousness of  God  through  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  unto  all  them  that  be- 
lieve; for  there  is  no  distinction;  for  all  have  sinned,  and  fall  short 
of  the  glory  of  God;  being  justified  freely  by  His  grace.  —  Romans 
HI.  10, 19-24. 


VI 


THE   NEW   RIGHTEOUSNESS 

The  conclusion  of  the  previous  chapter  brought  us 
up  to  the  point  in  St.  Paul's  argument  where  the  reason 
and  meaning  of  the  Gospel  most  clearly  appear.  The 
truth  and  need  of  righteousness,  the  recognition  of  the 
claims  of  righteousness,  the  existence  of  a  law  of 
righteousness,  whether  speaking  in  the  hearts  and  con- 
sciences of  men  or  thundered  from  heaven  upon  Sinai, 
all  these  somehow  do  not  avail  to  make  righteous  or  to 
produce  an  actual  righteousness  in  the  world.  For,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  righteousness  does  not  exist.  Where 
it  professes  to  exist,  it  is  at  best  only  a  conceit  of 
righteousness,  a  self -righteousness,  which  is  the  most 
fatal  and  hopeless  form  of  unrighteousness.  Where 
the  real  meaning  and  truth  of  righteousness  has  been 
best  conceived,  and  regard  for  the  external  divine  law 
of  it  has  produced  its  best  fruit  in  life  and  character, 
what  has  that  fruit  been  ?  Not  by  any  means  a  con- 
sciousness of  the  possession  or  the  conviction  of  a  pos- 
sible self-attainment  of  righteousness,  but  on  the 
contrary,  just  in  proportion  to  the  high  valuation  and 
real  love  of  the  law,  the  consciousness  of  not  only 
shortcoming  but  transgression,  and  the  sense  not  only 


70     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

of  sin  but  of  impotence.  Had  not  the  Lord  Himself 
when  on  earth  felt  that  the  one  hopeless  symptom  or 
condition  of  a  man  was  the  conceit  of  his  own  right- 
eousness? Was  He  not  driven  to  the  conclusion  that 
it  were  better  for  a  man  to  be  the  worst  sinner  and 
know  it  —  than  to  be  a  so-called  righteous  man  and 
unconscious  of  the  sin  that  was  in  him  ?  There  is  an 
absolute  identity  in  the  point  of  view  of  Jesus  and  of 
St.  Paul  on  this  point.  The  science  or  knowledge 
of  the  principles  and  rules  of  morality  is  not  morahty. 
The  only  real  righteousness  is  the  spirit  and  the  life 
of  Him  whose  law  righteousness  is.  And  the  more 
profoundly  we  know  and  feel  what  His  righteousness 
is,  the  more  we  know  and  feel  that  we  need  Him  as 
the  spirit  and  power  and  life  of  it.  This,  then,  is  St. 
Paul's  absolutely  exact  induction  or  generalization 
from  the  spiritual  facts  of  the  world  as  he  saw  it,  and 
as  it  is  still:  There  is  none  righteous,  no  not  one.  By 
the  law  is  only  the  knowledge,  the  sense,  of  sin.  That 
only  can  the  law  do  for  us ;  and  yet  in  doing  only  that, 
how  much  more  has  it  in  reality  accomphshed!  For 
the  very  sense  of  sin  which  the  law  gives  is  itself  the 
promise  and  condition  of  the  Gospel.  God  takes  away 
from  us  our  righteousness  only  to  give  us  His  own. 
Himself.  The  law  does  not  exist  merely  to  exhibit  its 
own  weakness  and  unprofitableness,  and  in  consequence 
to  be  discredited  and  annulled.  It  exists  rather  to 
create  a  need,  a  capacity,  a  hunger  and  thirst  for  holi- 
ness, righteousness,  life  —  so  deep,  so  high,  so  great, 
that  only  God  Himself  can  fill  and  satisfy  it.     Truly, 


The  New  Righteousness  71 

as  St.  Paul  says,  The  Law  was  and  is  a  schoolmaster 
to  bring  us  to  Christ. 

From  works  of  law  shall  no  flesh  be  justified  in 
God's  sight;  for  through  law  comes  knowledge  of  sin. 
It  is  not  said  here  that  through  law  there  comes  not 
actual  righteousness,  but  that  through  law  no  man  is 
before  God  recognized  as  being  righteous.  No  man 
who  knows  what  righteousness  is  will  come  into  God's 
presence  with  a  claim  of  his  own  to  it.  And  if  he 
does,  so  far  from  the  claim  being  recognized,  it  will  be 
regarded  as  the  one  disqualification  for  the  reality  to 
which  it  pretends.  The  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  was 
for  sinners  of  every  type  save  the  impossible  one  of 
self-righteousness.  This  sense  of  being  received,  ac- 
cepted, regarded,  treated,  as  righteous  is  carried  on 
from  the  mere  negative  statement  under  consideration 
to  a  positive  form  of  it  which  gives  a  new  and  important 
step  in  St.  Paul's  Gospel.  Not  only  will  the  most 
righteous  man  who  comes  before  God  with  the  claim 
of  his  own  righteousness  not  be  allowed  as  such,  but 
the  chief  of  sinners  who  comes  to  God  with  a  true 
sense  of  his  own  unrighteousness  and  a  sincere  faith  in 
God's  righteousness  made  his  own  in  Jesus  Christ  will 
he  received,  accepted,  regarded,  and  treated,  as  being 
righteous.  It  is  this  being  treated  as,  not  on  the  ground 
of  being  righteous,  but  on  the  ground  of  a  certain  rela- 
tion of  faith  to  Christ's  righteousness,  upon  which  is  laid 
the  chief  emphasis  in  St.  Paul's  system.  It  is  impos- 
sible to  attach  too  much  importance  to  this  turn  of 
thought,  and  we  shall  be  largely  occupied  with  it  as 


72     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

we  go  on.  But  in  order  to  do  justice  to  it  we  must 
understand  it,  and  in  order  to  do  that  we  must  question 
it. 

The  Pharisee  who  went  up  into  the  temple  to  pray 
and  reminded  God  of  his  own  righteousness  was  not 
thereby  justified;  while  the  publican  who  afar  off  was 
conscious  only  of  his  own  sin  in  the  sight  of  God  was, 
we  are  told,  justified.  That  cannot  mean  either  that 
he  was  recognized  as  actually  being  sinless,  or  that  he 
was  by  act  of  God  at  the  time  made  sinless  or  righteous. 
The  term  "  justify  "  is  not  in  the  parable  of  the  Gospel 
used  in  the  developed,  almost  technical,  sense  of  the 
epistle  before  us,  but  it  is  exactly  on  the  fine  of  it,  and 
it  illustrates  the  progress  and  the  propriety  of  its  later 
use.  If  the  publican,  rightly  and  truly  knowing  him- 
self to  be  a  sinner,  or  a  transgressor  of  the  law  of 
righteousness,  could  be  justified  —  which  meant  could 
be  regarded  or  accepted  as  righteous  —  it  must  of 
course  be,  not  on  the  ground  of  his  actually  being  so 
in  life  and  character,  but  on  the  ground  of  his,  at  the 
time,  occupying  the  right  posture  or  attitude,  the  only 
right  attitude  possible  for  him,  towards  righteousness 
and  at  the  same  time  towards  his  own  conscious 
unrighteousness.  What  was  that  attitude?  There  is 
only  one  which  it  could  possibly  be,  and  every  sinner 
who  in  his  sin  is  in  any  sense  or  degree  justified  before 
God,  can  be  so  only  on  the  ground  of  that  one  attitude. 
It  is  the  attitude  which  negatively  towards  our  own 
unrighteousness  we  call  repentancey  and  positively 
towards  the  righteousness  of  God  we  call  faith.     If  a 


The  New  Righteousness  73 

man  did  not  have  some  sense  of  the  righteousness 
which  he  violates,  he  could  have  no  sense  of  the  un- 
righteousness which  is  his  violation  of  it.  The  condi- 
tion of  possible  or  future  righteousness  is  the  right 
attitude  or  intention  of  mind  and  feeling  towards  actual 
present  unrighteousness.  It  is  possible  in  any  sense  to 
justify  or  accept  as  right  only  that  personal  attitude 
towards  the  matter  which  at  the  time  is  the  nearest 
right  possible  for  the  person.  In  the  initial  moment  of 
contrition  the  only  possible  and  the  necessarily  first 
right  posture  of  the  sinner  is  that  consciousness  of 
himself  which  could  not  be  the  beginning  of  hatred 
of  his  sin  if  it  were  not  to  the  same  extent  the  begin- 
ning of  a  love  of  holiness.  Where  this  exists  in  truth 
and  sincerity,  even  though  it  be  but  the  beginning  of 
what  is  an  infinite  process,  it  is  possible  and  right  to 
accept  and  treat  already  as  right  that  which  as  yet  is 
only  a  first  turning  to  and  direction  towards  the  right. 
St.  John  expresses  more  fully  this  divine  propriety  of 
justifying  and  accepting  the  simple  sense  of  sin  as  the 
beginning  of  holiness,  when  he  says:  If  we  say  that 
we  have  no  sin,  we  deceive  ourselves  and  the  truth  is 
not  in  us;  if  we  confess  our  sin,  God  is  faithful  and 
just  to  forgive  us  our  sin  and  to  cleanse  us  from  all 
unrighteousness. 

We  see  already  in  our  Lord's  parable  of  the  treatment 
of  the  publican  the  precise  and  entire  principle  which 
in  St.  Paul  we  find  developed  into  the  doctrine  of 
justification  by  faith.  At  its  fullest  and  completest 
that  doctrine  means  this:  that  the  veriest  sinner  who 


74     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

begins  to  see  and  feel  his  sin  in  himself,  by  repentance, 
and  his  holiness  or  righteousness  in  Christ,  by  faith, 
is  as  truly  on  the  way  and  as  near  to  the  end  of  right- 
eousness as  is  then  possible  for  him,  and  it  is  divinely 
right  that  his  faith  should  be  received  and  treated  as 
being  righteousness,  because  it  is  not  only  the  actual 
beginning  of  righteousness  in  him  but  is  the  righteous- 
ness proper  for  him  at  that  stage.  Righteousness  in 
us  cannot  begin  otherwise  than  as  an  incipient  sense 
of  sin  and  that  prolepsis  or  pre-vision  and  apprehension 
of  hoKness  which  we  call  faith.  Faith  is  therefore  with 
a  divine  truth  and  propriety  reckoned  or  imputed  to 
us  as  being  righteousness,  for  it  is  a  necessary  moment 
or  stage  in  our  righteousness. 

The  above  view  is  supplemented  and  completed  by 
the  fact  that  God  has  first  promised  and  now  given  us 
in  Jesus  Christ  the  holiness  or  righteousness  which  is 
the  end  and  meaning  of  all  repentance  and  faith.  So 
sure  are  His  promises  and  so  certain  His  gifts,  that 
there  is  no  excuse  for  faith's  not  accepting  them  as 
already  in  possession;  and  that  which  faith  already 
appropriates  as  its  own,  God's  grace  goes  beyond  our 
faith  in  imputing  to  us  as  already  our  own.  Such,  in 
so  brief  a  preHminary  sketch,  is  the  new  righteousness 
of  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ.  It  differs  from  the  old 
in  that,  while  the  righteousness  of  the  law  consists  in 
our  own  obedience,  and  is  thus  a  self-righteousness, 
and  under  the  law  righteousness  on  our  part  is  the 
condition  of  our  acceptance  with  God;  the  righteous- 
ness of  faith,  on  the  other  hand,  begins  with  only  our 


The  New  Righteousness  75 

sense  of  sin  and  experience  of  weakness  or  insufficiency, 
God's  loving  and  free  acceptance  of  which  in  us  is  the 
condition  and  starting-point  and  earnest  of  a  righteous- 
ness of  our  own :  which  righteousness,  then,  is  further 
and  fully  assured  to  us  by  the  actual  revelation  of  it  to 
us  in  Jesus  Christ,  in  whom  we  see  all  the  presence  and 
power  of  God  in  us,  and  in  consequence  all  the  power 
in  ourselves  in  God,  necessary  to  its  actual  attainment 
and  possession. 

It  is  true,  then,  that  St.  PauFs  justification  by  faith 
is  not  primarily  and  immediately  a  righteousing  or 
making  us  righteous,  but  an  acceptance  of  our  own 
sense  of  unrighteousness  and  our  faith  in  God's  right- 
eousness as  being  our  own;  but  nevertheless  there  is  a 
vital  and  necessary  connection  between  the  two  things 
which  has  to  be  taken  into  the  fullest  account.  The 
Apostle  says  that  by  works  of  law  shall  no  flesh  be 
justified  before  God.  Why  is  it  that  no  man  shall  be 
accepted  or  accounted  as  righteous  through  the  opera- 
tion of  the  law.?^  Is  it  not  solely  because  the  law, 
merely  as  such,  that  is,  merely  through  the  man's 
knowledge  or  obedience  of  the  law,  is  incapable  of 
making  the  man  righteous  or  of  operating  or  producing 
righteousness  ?  Is  not  the  point  after  all  the  fact  that 
the  end  of  the  whole  matter,  which  is  man's  salvation, 
which  again  is  the  effectuating  or  actualizing  of  his 
potential  righteousness  and  personal  life,  is  not  to  be 
accomplished  through  any  command  on  God's  part 
or  any  obligation  on  his  own  to  be  righteous,  but  only 
through  the  grace  and  power  of  God  in  him  to  make 


76     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

him,  by  enabling  him  to  make  himself,  righteous  ?  As 
the  law  is  not  the  end  but  only  a  means,  and  a  means 
which,  effectual  as  far  as  it  goes  in  bringing  us  towards 
the  end,  is  ineffectual  to  bring  us  to  the  end,  —  so  the 
Gospel  itself,  too,  however  effectual  to  the  end,  is  only 
a  means,  and  as  such  must  be  interpreted  not  in  itself 
but  by  its  end.  And  what  is  the  end  of  the  Gospel? 
It  is  not  that  men  in  order  to  be  righteous  in  the  end 
shall  be  provisionally  accepted  and  treated  as  such  in 
the  beginning;  but  exactly  the  reverse,  that  they  shall 
be  so  lovingly  and  graciously  taken  into  God's  right- 
eousness and  treated  as  righteous  in  the  beginning 
that  they  shall  become,  or  be  made  so,  in  the  end. 
It  is  the  end  always  that  determines  the  meaning  and 
nature  of  the  thing,  and  the  Gospel  is  the  power  of 
God  unto  an  actual  righteousness  of  men;  and  only 
by  the  way,  or  in  a  secondary  sense,  a  gracious  treating 
of  sinful  men  as  not  sinful,  and  of  a  faith  which  is  not 
yet  righteousness  as  being  already  such. 

The  point  I  am  insisting  upon  may  be  more  plainly 
put  in  the  following  way :  It  is  true  that  the  meaning  of 
the  words  in  the  passage  before  us  is  that  no  man  is 
accepted  or  accounted  as  righteous  through  operation 
of  the  law ;  and  then  that  a  man  is  accepted  as  righteous, 
or  accounted  righteous,  upon  faith  in  Christ,  and  apart 
from  any  c'aim  of  righteousness  of  his  own.  But  why 
is  he  not  accepted  as  righteous  through  the  law,  and 
why  is  he  accepted  as  such  through  faith  ?  The  answer 
to  the  first  is,  that  he  is  not  justified  or  accepted  as 
righteous  through  the  law,  not  only  because  as  a  matter 


The  New  Righteousness  77 

of  fact  he  is  not  so  righteous,  but  because  he  cannot 
be;  the  law  has  not  for  him  any  promise  or  power  of 
righteousness.  Its  insistence  or  enforcement  so  far 
from  imparting  holiness  only  plunges  him  more  and 
more  deeply  into  sin.  Is  not  the  answer  to  the  second 
question  then  this :  that  a  man  is  accepted  as  righteous 
through  faith  in  Christ,  because  Christ  is  his  righteous- 
ness, and  because  faith  in  Christ  has  in  it  the  potency 
and  the  promise  of  his  own  actual  righteousness  in 
and  through  Jesus  Christ.?  The  law  cannot  justify  a 
man  or  pronounce  him  righteous,  because  it  cannot 
make  him  so.  The  Gospel  or  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  as 
our  righteousness  can  justify  us,  because  it  is  based 
not  only  upon  the  only  condition  in  ourselves  of  be- 
coming righteous  —  viz. :  knowledge  of  our  own  un- 
righteousness and  faith  in  God's  righteousness  —  but 
upon  the  only  power  without  ourselves  to  make  us 
righteous  —  viz. :  the  love  and  grace  and  fellowship  of 
God;  and  all  that  manifestly  expressed  and  communi- 
cated to  us  in  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ. 

The  importance,  and  even  necessity,  of  insisting  upon 
this  last  point  is  that  Christianity  is  constantly  in 
danger  of  becoming  a  mere  blind  trust  in  the  general 
and  indiscriminate  goodness  of  God,  apart  from  or 
even  in  spite  of  what  we  are  or  do  ourselves.  We  look 
for  our  salvation  in  God  or  in  Jesus  Chrst  and  not  in 
ourselves,  as  though  there  were  any  salvation  possible 
for  us  apart  from  or  other  than  what  we  ourselves  are 
and  do.  We  find  a  weak  and  selfish  satisfaction  and 
comfort  in  what  God  is  to  us,  without  knowledge  or 


78     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

thought  that  the  only  real  satisfaction  or  comfort  that 
we  can  ever  know  will  be  through  what  God  is  in  us 
and  we  are  in  Him.  Of  all  the  good  things  that  it  is 
more  blessed  to  give  than  to  receive,  that  we  can 
continue  to  receive  only  through  giving,  the  chiefest  is 
the  supreme  good  of  God  Himself.  The  Spirit  of  God, 
the  holiness,  righteousness,  or  life  of  God  can  do  us  no 
good  save  as  they  are  our  own,  and  they  are  our  own 
only  in  our  own  possession  and  exercise  of  them.  It 
is  an  infinite  initial  blessing,  a  present  Gospel,  to  us 
that  God  does  not  wait  for  us  to  be  good,  that  He 
takes  us  to  Himself  from  the  moment  of  the  birth  in 
us  of  the  will  to  be  good,  and  by  treating  us  as  though 
we  were  makes  us  good.  But  let  us  beware  of  stopping 
with  the  Gospel  of  being  accepted  and  not  going  on 
to  the  real  Gospel  of  being  good.  For  there  is  no 
other  real  good  for  man  than  that  of  being  good,  of 
his  own  goodness.  Any  other  is  only  a  blessing  on 
the  way,  a  refreshment  and  a  help  to  the  consummate 
end  and  blessedness  of  being  what  God  is.  And  let  us 
remember,  too,  what  the  goodness  is  that  is  our  only 
real  good.  It  is  the  spirit,  nature,  and  life  of  God,  it 
is  love,  service,  and  sacrifice.  We  have  heard  it  said, 
I  am  content  to  be  a  sinner  saved  by  grace.  In  the 
first  place,  in  its  truest  and  highest  sense,  to  be  a  sinner 
saved  is  to  be  one  who  having  been  a  sinner  is  so  no 
longer;  to  be  content  to  be  saved  in  and  not  from  sin, 
to  be  saved  and  still  a  sinner,  is  no  true  contentment. 
To  be  content  to  have  been  a  sinner  and  to  be  saved 
by  grace,  or  by  God,  only,  is  the  highest  contentment 


The  New  Righteousness  79 

of  which  we  are  capable.  It  is  St.  Augustine's  bride 
content  to  be  adorned  only  with  the  gifts  of  her  divine 
spouse.  But,  in  a  lower  sense,  we  may  with  truth  and 
right,  in  the  impossibility  of  an  immediate  or  instan- 
taneous attainment  of  the  divine  perfection,  and  even 
with  the  consciousness  of  a  still  inhering  defilement  of 
sin,  be  content  to  abide  sinners  still,  waiting,  without 
the  undue  impatience  which  would  be  want  of  faith 
and  an  insisting  upon  sight,  for  the  glory  that  is  to  be 
revealed  in  us,  the  glorious  liberty  and  perfection  of 
the  sons  of  God.  For  one  in  that  stage  and  attitude 
of  faith  and  waiting,  it  is  indeed  a  present  though  not 
the  whole  or  highest  blessedness  of  the  Gospel  that  we 
are  already,  with  God  and  in  faith,  all  that  we  shall 
be  in  God  and  in  fact.  Indeed,  in  St.  Paul's  immediate 
crisis  of  thought  and  contention,  this  stage  and  phase 
of  the  matter  is  so  uppermost  for  the  time  that  he  almost 
seems  to  treat  it  as  the  whole  Gospel.  He  never  really 
does  this,  though  his  ardent  and  one-sided  partisans 
have  abundantly  done  so  ever  since.  St.  Paul  has  ever 
in  his  own  mind  the  whole  undismembered  conception 
of  salvation  in  Christ,  but  he  is  passionately  in  earnest 
in  establishing  the  present  gracious  status  of  believers 
as  already  and  completely  in  possession  in  faith,  though 
not  yet  in  fact,  of  all  that  God  has  made  ours  in  Christ. 
And  as  the  word  which  the  Apostle  has  deliberately 
chosen  to  express  the  matter  of  God's  gift  to  us  in 
Christ  is  righteousness,  it  is  the  point  of  his  contention 
to  insist,  as  the  very  crux  and  substance  of  faith,  that  we 
—  not  shall  be,  or  are  becoming,  but  —  are  righteous 


80     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

before  God.  We  may  come  to  Him  as  perfectly 
accepted  and  justified  as  Jesus  Christ  Himself,  and  be 
treated  by  Him  as  though  we  were  as  complete  in  Him 
as  is  our  dead,  risen,  ascended,  and  glorified  Lord  in 
heaven.  Such  is  the  unreserved  fulness  of  divine  grace, 
and  the  unlimited  and  unhesitating  power  and  confi- 
dence of  human  faith! 

But  the  very  and  simple  fact  that  our  present  justi- 
fying and  justification  are  called  —  not  as  in  English 
by  different  words  but  in  Greek  by  identical  ones  — 
righteousing  and  righteousness,  is  sufficient  evidence 
that  God's  calHng  or  treating  us  as  or  accounting  us 
righteous  means  His  thereby  already  potential  and  in 
the  end  actual  making  us  so. 


vn 

THE   OBJECT   OF   JUSTIFYING 
OR   SAVING   FAITH 


The  righteousness  of  God  (is)  through  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  unto 
all  them  that  believe;  being  justified  freely  by  His  grace  through  the 
redemption  that  is  in  Christ  Jesus:  whom  God  set  fort;h  to  be  a  pro- 
pitiation, through  faith,  by  His  blood.  —  Romans  IU.  22-25. 


VII 

THE   OBJECT   OF   JUSTIFYING   OR 
SAVING   FAITH 

It  being  established  that  righteousness  is  both  im- 
puted and  imparted  only  through  faith,  or  in  the  terms 
of  later  theology  that  faith  is  the  sole  mean  or  instru- 
ment of  both  our  justification  and  our  sanctification,  it 
will  be  well  to  ascertain  clearly  from  St.  Paul's  prelimi- 
nary statement  what  is  the  specific  object  of  the  faith 
that  justifies  and  sanctifies.  It  is  here  declared  pro- 
gressively to  be:  First,  Jesus  Christ  Himself.  There 
has  been  manifested  a  righteousness  of  God  through 
faith  of  Jesus  Christ  for  all  who  share  and  exercise 
that  faith.  Second,  the  object  of  faith  is  described 
more  explicitly  as  the  redemption  that  is  in  Christ 
Jesus,  the  propitiation  or  atonement  set  forth  by  God 
for  our  acceptance  through  faith.  And  third,  it  is  the 
blood  of  Jesus  which  is  the  immediate  object  of  faith. 
The  above  benefits  are  ours  through  faith  in  His  blood. 
We  will  consider  these  steps  of  faith  in  the  above  order. 

In  the  phrase  A  righteousness  of  God  through  faith 
of  Jesus  Christ,  it  has  been  questioned  whether  Jesus 
Christ  is  the  object  of  the  faith  spoken  of  or  the  subject 
of  it;  whether  it  is  the  faith,  of  Jesus  Himself  or  our 


84     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

faith  in  Jesus  that  justifies,  sanctifies,  and  saves  us. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  the  words  here  mean  the  latter, 
that  Jesus  Christ  is  here  the  object  and  not  the  subject. 
But  there  is  a  truth  in  the  other  view  too  which  I  am 
soHcitous  of  emphasizing  for  its  own  sake.  Emphati- 
cally, the  faith  that  saves  us,  that  works  in  us,  or  more 
exactly  through  which  are  worked  in  us  all  the  wonders 
of  our  salvation  —  our  redemption,  reconciliation,  and 
resurrection  —  is  the  human  faith  perfected  and  brought 
to  its  victory  over  the  world  by  our  Lord  Himself  in 
the  consummate  fact  of  His  own  resurrection,  which 
we  must  forever  contend  was  not  an  act  of  mechanical 
power  exerted  upon  Him,  but  an  act  of  spiritual  and 
moral  power  exerted  in  Him  and  by  Him,  and  that 
humanly.  It  is  then  the  faith  of  which  Jesus  Christ 
Himself  was  the  supreme  subject,  the  author  and 
finisher  or  perfecter,  that  by  our  sharing  it  with  Him 
becomes  His  salvation  in  us  and  ours  in  Him.  The 
faith  spoken  of  here  is,  it  is  true,  our  faith  in  Jesus 
Christ;  but  then  our  faith  in  Him  is  very  largely,  if  not 
chiefly,  our  faith  in  His  faith  —  that  is  to  say,  our 
faith  in  that  supreme  and  completive  act  of  faith  on 
His  part  which,  as  human  victory  over  and  redemption 
from  sin  and  death,  is  in  itself  human  salvation. 

Faith  in  Jesus  Christ  then  goes  on  of  itself  to  mean, 
faith  in  His  redemption,  or  faith  in  human  redemption, 
our  own  redemption,  wrought  in  and  by  Him.  When 
we  say  The  redemption  that  is  in  Him,  it  is  again  a 
question  whether  we  mean  a  redemption  that  is  in 
Himself  or  only  a  redemption  that  we  have  in  Him. 


Justifying  or  Saving  Faith  85 

There  is  a  truth  in  the  first  point  of  view  which,  on 
account  of  its  too  long  and  too  great  obscuration,  I  wish 
especially  to  bring  forward  in  this  exposition  of  St. 
Paul's  teaching.  And  for  this  purpose  I  will  bring 
together  several  passages  in  illustration  of  it.  When 
we  were  speaking  of  the  Gospel  as  the  power  of  God 
unto  salvation,  I  asked  where  and  how  that  power  was 
manifested,  and  what  it  was.  When  the  definition 
then  under  discussion  went  on  to  say  that  the  Gospel 
was  the  power  of  God  unto  salvation  because  therein 
was  revealed  a  righteousness  of  God  through  faith,  I 
asked  again,  where  and  how  was  that  righteousness  of 
God  revealed.  And  so  here  again  in  the  passage  now 
before  us,  when  it  is  said  that  there  has  been  mani- 
fested a  righteousness,  not  through  law,  but  of  God 
through  faith  —  I  ask  the  same  question.  Where,  and 
what,  and  how,  has  this  righteousness  of  God  been 
manifested  ?  I  answer  in  the  first  case,  that  the  power 
of  God  at  work  in  salvation  was  revealed  in  the  act 
and  fact  of  the  human  salvation  actually  and  visibly 
wrought  first  in  Jesus  Christ  Himself.  The  salvation 
consisted  in  the  manifest  accomplished  fact  of  His 
perfect  holiness  and  His  risen  life.  That  victory  of 
human  faith  was  in  itself  human  salvation.  There 
was  the  power  to  save,  because  there  was  the  salvation 
it  had  wrought.  There  was  the  divine  power  in  faith 
to  conquer  the  world,  for  there  was  the  world  conquered 
by  faith.  The  grace  enabling  faith  and  the  faith 
enabled  by  grace  to  overcome  sin  and  destroy  death, 
the  divine  and  the  human  conspiring  to  produce  and 


86     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

constitute  the  new  righteousness  of  God  in  man  and 
man  in  God,  were  so  met  in  Jesus  that  He  Himself 
was  the  revelation  because  He  was  Himself  the  thing 
revealed. 

In  the  second  case,  I  answer  similarly,  or  identically, 
that  the  righteousness  of  God  revealed  in  the  Gospel 
is  the  righteousness  revealed  in  Jesus  Christ  Himself. 
For  Jesus  Christ  is  Himself  the  Gospel.  All  that  God, 
whose  Word  of  Love  and  Life  is  all  our  Gospelj  has 
to  say,  or  reveal,  or  manifest,  or  in  any  way  commu- 
nicate or  impart  to  us,  is  said  and  done  and  stands 
complete  in  the  human  person  of  His  justified  and 
sanctified  and  glorified  Son.  The  righteousness  of 
Christ  is  as  truly  and  completely  our  righteousness  as 
it  is  God's.  It  is  as  truly  a  righteousness  of  human 
faith  and  obedience,  of  sin  conquered  and  death 
suffered  and  survived,  as  it  is  a  righteousness  of  God 
Himself  in  it  with  all  His  divine  power  to  sanctify  and 
save.  The  third  case  is  only  a  repetition  of  the  second 
except  as  we  recognize  a  difference  between  the  more 
general  revelation  of  God's  righteousness  and  the  more 
specific  manifestation  of  it.  While  all  communications 
of  the  divine  righteousness  are  through  Jesus  Christ, 
the  revelation  views  it  more  as  extended  through  than 
as  at  first  existent  only  in  Him,  while  the  manifestation 
views  it  more  as  existent  only  in  Him  than  as  yet 
generally  imparted  through  Him.  Manifestation  is  the 
word  generally  used  to  designate  God's  self-expressions 
in  the  individual  person  of  Jesus  Christ  —  as  when 
St.  John  says,  And  the  Life  was  manifested,  and  we 


Justifijing  or  Saving  Faith  87 

have  seen,  and  bear  witness,  and  declare  unto  you  the 
Hfe,  the  eternal  life,  that  was  with  the  Father,  and  was 
manifested  unto  us.  So  here  when  the  Apostle  speaks 
of  a  righteousness  having  been  manifested,  not  by 
nature,  nor  through  law,  but  from  God,  he  means  that 
it  was  manifested  in  the  concrete  form  of  our  Lord's 
own  human  righteousness.  It  is  precisely  parallel  and 
identical  with  St.  John's  description  of  sonship  in 
Christ  as  being  born  not  of  blood,  nor  of  the  will  of 
the  flesh,  nor  of  the  will  of  man,  but  of  God.  How 
our  Lord's  own  individual  human  righteousness  was, 
in  Himself,  not  of  nature  nor  of  law,  but  of  faith  and 
grace  and  God,  I  leave  it  to  our  whole  exposition  to 
develop. 

We  come  now  to  apply  the  foregoing  conclusions  to 
the  consideration  of  the  question,  whether  when  St. 
Paul  speaks  of  the  redemption  that  is  in  Christ  Jesus 
he  means  a  redemption  only  in  us  and  not  in  Him, 
some  redemption  which  we  have  through  Him,  and 
not  His  own  which  we  share  with  Him.  Whatever 
other  and  lower  meanings  redemption  may  have  on 
the  way,  its  true  meaning  is  that  which  it  has  or  will 
have  in  the  end.  It  is  a  redemption  to  us  already 
simply  to  know  by  faith  that  our  redemption  is,  without 
a  peradventure,  provided  for  us  by  the  redemptive  act 
of  Jesus  Christ.  But  that  has  no  meaning  at  all  if  it 
is  not  a  looking  forward  to  and  a  confident  expectation 
of  an  actual  sharing  of  a  redemption  which  actually 
exists,  reaUzed  and  complete,  in  Jesus  Christ.  We 
have  only  to  anticipate  the  whole  teaching  of  the  eighth 


88     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

chapter  of  this  Epistle  to  the  Romans  and  remember 
how  is  there  described  the  blessed  consummation  of 
the  glorious  liberty  of  the  sons  of  God.  Redemption 
is  a  real  setting  free.  Though  already  free  in  spirit, 
through  the  divine  power  of  faith,  or  the  divine  power 
in  faith  (or  both),  we  are  not  yet  free  in  fact  as  long  as 
we  are  in  the  flesh.  Even  we  who  have  the  first  fruits 
of  the  spirit,  even  we  ourselves  groan  within  ourselves, 
waiting  for  our  adoption,  to  wit,  the  redemption  of  our 
bodies.  For  the  Apostle  had  just  before  given  us  as- 
surance that  if  the  Spirit  of  God  and  of  Christ  were 
really  in  us,  then  He  who  had  raised  up  Christ  Jesus 
from  the  dead  should  quicken  also  our  mortal  bodies 
through  His  Spirit  that  dwelleth  in  us.  There  is 
involved  the  meaning  that  our  partial  redemption 
which  is  as  yet  only  in  faith  shall  be  complete  in  fact, 
when  we  shall  have  been  freed  from  the  flesh  with  its 
still  inhering  sin  and  death. 

The  more  general  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  has  then  to 
be  specialized  and  defined  into  faith  in  the  redemption 
which  is  in  Him,  in  Himself  as  the  actual  first-fruits 
of  humanity  to  God,  as  well  as  in  Him  for  us  who 
share  it  with  Him.  Any  one  who  will  now  read  the 
description  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  of  how  our 
great  high  priest  and  representative  found,  for  himself 
and  for  us,  eternal  redemption,  will  feel,  especially  in  the 
Greek  expression  of  it,  the  force  of  what  has  been  said. 

St.  Paul  adds  to  this  specification  of  Christ's  redemp- 
tion the  further  truth  that  God  has  set  forth,  or  in  a 
sense  put  forward,  Jesus  Christ  as — not  a  mere  ex- 


Justifying  or  Saving  Faith  89 

pression  but,  we  might  say  —  a  real  expression  (inas- 
much as  He  is  the  thing  expressed  as  well  as  the  ex- 
pression of  it)  of  what  throughout  the  New  Testament 
is  called  propitiation  or  reconciliation;  or  later  atone- 
ment, in  the  sense  of  at-one-ment,  though  later  still 
with  much  accretion  in  that  term  of  additional  meaning. 
It  is  very  much  questioned  whether  the  Apostle  in  this 
passage  means  to  represent  God  as  setting  forth  Jesus 
Christ  as  the  true  mercy-seat,  the  meeting  place  or  place 
of  reconciliation  and  at-one-ment  between  God  and 
man,  corresponding  to  the  ancient  covering  of  the  ark, 
upon  which  was  the  shekinah,  the  luminous  cloud, 
thought  to  prefigure  the  great  future  truth  of  the 
Incarnation;  or  whether  the  word  means  not  the  pro- 
pitiatory place  but  the  propitiatory  thing,  meaning  by 
that  the  sacrifice  which  propitiates  or  effects  recon- 
ciliation and  peace  between  God  and  man.  The  more 
general  and  probable  conclusion  is  that  the  expression 
is  left  unHmited  so  as  to  include  all  possible  truth  or 
points  of  view.  What  is  necessary  for  our  argument 
will  be  brought  out  in  the  next  matter  for  our  consid- 
eration. 

The  object  of  saving  faith,  it  will  be  remembered, 
was  stated  to  be,  not  Jesus  Christ  Himself  in  general, 
nor  yet  only  Jesus  Christ  as  place  or  instrument  of 
our  redemption  and  at-one-ment  with  God,  but  these 
more  specifically  through  faith  in  His  Mood.  The 
meaning  of  this  tremendous  expression  is  more  clearly 
than  anywhere  else  brought  out  in  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews  —  which  is  thoroughly  Pauline  in  substance 


90     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

though  not  in  form.  And  we  may  recur  to  the  passage 
alluded  to  immediately  above.  Christ,  we  are  told, 
having  come  as  the  true  high  priest  of  humanity,  not 
with  blood  of  others  but  with  or  through  His  own 
blood  He  entered  once  for  all  into  the  hoHest  place, 
having  found  eternal  redemption.  What  was  that 
blood  of  His  own  with  which,  and  only  with  or  by 
which,  He  found  redemption  and  entered  into  eternal 
oneness  with  God?  The  blood  was  Himself,  His 
human  life,  without  spot  or  blemish,  in  the  one  only 
perfect  offering  of  love,  service,  and  sacrifice,  of  com- 
pleted hoHness  and  righteousness.  If  the  blood  of 
bulls  and  goats  had  a  certain  efficacy  of  their  own, 
how  much  more  shall  the  blood  of  Christ,  who  through 
the  eternal  Spirit  offered  Himself  without  spot  to  God, 
cleanse  our  conscience,  and  our  very  consciousness, 
from  dead  works  to  serve  the  living  God! 

Now  what  was  the  main  point  of  comparison  or 
contrast  between  the  blood  offered  to  God  in  the 
ancient  sacrifices  and  that  offered  by  our  Lord  in  the 
one  only  effectuating  sacrifice  of  Himself  ?  The  others, 
too,  were  effectual,  in  their  way  and  to  a  certain  extent. 
They  were  not  perfectly  or  really  so,  because  it  was 
impossible  for  them  to  be  anything  more  than  represen- 
tative, or  substitutionary,  or  vicarious.  Anything  only 
in  another  can  never  more  than  represent,  it  can  never 
be,  something  in  us.  The  sacrifice  which  the  ancient 
Jew  offered  always  represented  or  meant  himself, 
something  which  he  himself  ought  to  be  or  do.  He 
ought  to  offer  up  himself  to  God,  as  a  whole  burnt- 


Justifying  or  Saving  Faith  91 

offering  of  love,  service,  and  sacrifice.  He  knew  that, 
and  acknowledged  it  by  the  symbolic  act  of  offering  up 
something  else  as  representative,  or  substitution,  or 
instead  of  himself  (vice).  At  its  best  the  act  contained 
in  it  a  feeling  and  confession  of  his  own  failure  and 
weakness  to  do  what  he  ought  to  do,  or  to  be  in  himself 
what  he  ought  to  be.  If  he  could  not  be,  he  could  at 
least  confess  his  conscious  experience  of  not  being  and 
of  inability  to  be.  That  being  at  least  the  first  step, 
and  in  the  direction  of,  and  as  far  as  he  could  go  of 
himself  towards  a  right  relation  with  God  and  his  own 
true  self,  it  was  right  in  God  to  accept  it.  But  how 
far  or  to  what  point  could  God's  acceptance  of  it  go  ? 
It  could  only  go  to  the  point  of  accepting  the  man's 
sense  of  not  being  and  will  to  be  for,  or  instead  of,  his 
being.  It  was  only  treating  him  as  being  what  he 
was  not  —  and  nothing  more.  It  was  putting  aside, 
not  putting  away,  either  his  sin  or  his  weakness.  It 
was  covering  up  or  putting  out  of  sight,  not  removing 
or  putting  out  of  existence,  the  whole  sad  fact  of  his 
spiritual  and  moral  condition. 

Suppose  we  instance  not  the  burnt-offering  but  the 
sin-offering  of  the  Jews.  That  is  still  more  expressive. 
We  must  define  a  thing  only  by  its  highest  and  final 
meaning,  sometimes  by  a  meaning  which  it  only  points 
to  afterwards,  and  does  not  itself  as  yet  attain.  The 
Jewish  sin-offering  could  mean  only,  one  or  both  of, 
two  things.  The  offerer  symbolized  by  his  offering, 
by  the  death  inflicted  upon  the  substitute  for  himself, 
either  the  death  he  deserved  to  die  for  his  sins,  or  the 


92     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

death  he  ought  to  die  from  his  sins.  Or  to  express  it 
in  the  more  developed  language  of  Christianity,  he 
symbolized  either  the  death  of  the  old  man  in  him,  in 
and  for  his  sins,  or  the  death  of  the  new  man,  the 
regenerate,  risen  man  in  him,  to  and  from  sin.  But 
suppose  that  the  sin-offering  did  mean  all  that,  and 
even  could  mean  it  all  to  the  man  himself,  what  could 
it  do  more  than  mean  it?  How  could  it  be  it.?  The 
other  thing's  death,  however  significant  of  it  it  might 
be,  could  not  be  what  after  all  and  in  the  end  is  the 
thing  and  the  only  thing  that  the  man  truly  wants, 
the  only  thing  that  is  or  would  be  his  salvation.  What 
would  all  even  God's  love  and  mercy  and  goodness, 
and  treating  him  as  righteous  in  his  unrighteousness, 
be  to  him  if  after  all  it  was  only  a  fiction,  an  imputing 
to  him  something  not  his  own.  And  of  all  things  in 
the  world  the  thing  that  must  most  be  the  man's  own 
is  the  holiness  or  righteousness  which  is  his  life,  his 
blessedness,  himself. 

When  Jesus  Christ  made  His  offering  to  God,  it  was 
the  offering  of  the  blood,  of  the  Ufe,  not  of  another  but 
of  Himself.  By  the  eternal  Spirit  that  was  in  Him  He 
offered  up  Himself,  He  gave  His  life,  to  God  in  an  act 
of  perfect  holiness  and  righteousness,  that  is  to  say,  in 
an  act  of  perfect  love,  service,  and  sacrifice.  It  was, 
because  of  that,  a  whole-humi-oSenng,  an  offering  in 
which  nothing  is  held  back,  but  the  entire  self  is 
given  and  used,  spent  or  consumed,  in  the  divine  life 
of  obedience.  More  than  that,  it  was  an  effectual 
sin-offering,   an   offering  in   which  the  self  of  sin   is 


Justifying  or  Saving  Faith  93 

crucified,  dead,  and  buried  —  thenceforth  and  forever 
non-existent  —  and  that  which  takes  its  place  in  the 
person  is  at  once  no  longer  himself  and,  at  the  same 
time,  his  own  inner  and  truest  self,  the  Christ  in  him, 
the  son  of  God  that  liveth  forevermore. 

Why,  then,  could  the  blood  of  Jesus,  as  none  other 
could,  take  away  sin?  Because  it  did  take  away  sin; 
because  it  was  and  is  the  taking  away  of  sin.  Sin  was 
actually  abolished  in  humanity  in  the  person  of  Jesus 
Christ,  in  whom  in  the  most  literal  and  actual  sense 
humanity  died  to  itself  and  so  to  sin,  and  lived  to  God 
and  so  to  hoUness  and  righteousness  and  eternal  life. 
And  such  is  Jesus  Christ  in  Himself,  and  such  is  He 
to  us,  that  He  can  take  us  into  such  an  actual  partici- 
pation —  in  the  eternal  Spirit,  in  the  divine  nature,  in 
the  life  of  God  —  with  Himself,  that  we  too  in  Him 
and  with  Him  can  share  His  death  and  His  resurrection. 

And  so  I  conclude  that  the  whole  work  of  Jesus 
Christ  was  justifying  or  saving,  just  because  it  was  not, 
in  any  sense,  merely  representative.  It  was  not  merely 
representative  in  the  sense  of  being  only  exemplary, 
the  perfect  sample  or  example  of  what  every  human 
life  should  be.  He  was  indeed,  but  He  was  not  only 
the  one  of  us  who  saw  the  most  clearly  and  reahzed 
the  most  perfectly  the  meaning  of  man  and  the  end  of 
human  life.  The  very  perfection  of  his  doing  that 
transcended  anything  other  than  or  outside  of  and 
apart  from  His  sole  accomplishment  of  it.  So  much 
so  that  His  perfect  righteousness  and  life  are  not  only 
an  example  but  the  procuring  and  effectuating  cause 


94     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

of  ours:  Because  I  live,  ye  shall  live  also.  And  not 
only  that  but  more  still;  He  is  effectual  example  and 
effectuating  cause,  because  He  is  the  very  matter  or 
substance,  the  res  or  thing  itself,  of  our  righteousness 
and  our  hfe.  As  He  is  God  in  us  our  righteousness, 
so  is  He  the  power  of  God  Himself  in  us  manifested 
in  the  actuahty  of  our  own  resurrection  and  risen  hfe, 
in  the  realization  of  our  own  spiritual  sonship  to  God 
and  participation  in  the  divine  nature. 

In  a  yet  higher  sense  is  our  Lord's  consummate  act 
in  humanity  not  only  representative,  —  and  that  is,  in 
the  sense  of  its  not  being,  as  all  sacrifices  before  Him 
were,  only  symbolical  or  substitutionary  or  vicarious. 
They  were  all  accepted  only  as  instead  of  the  offerer,  as 
substitutes  for  his  own  act  or  sacrifice  of  himself, 
because  that  was  all  they  could  be.  Christ's  act.  His 
precious  death  and  glorious  resurrection.  His  holiness, 
righteousness,  and  eternal  life,  can  by  God's  grace  and 
our  faith  be  made,  and  actually  become,  not  only  for 
us  but  in  us  and  of  us  and  ours! 


VIII 

THE    CLEARING   UP    OF   THE 
MYSTERY   OF    RIGHTEOUSNESS 


To  show  His  righteousness,  because  of  the  passing  over  of  sins 
done  aforetime,  in  the  forbearance  of  God;  for  the  shewing  of  His 
righteousness  at  this  present  season:  that  He  might  himself  be  just, 
and  the  justifier  of  him  that  hath  faith  in  Jesus.  Where  then  is  the 
glorying?  It  is  excluded.  By  what  manner  of  law?  of  works? 
Nay;  but  by  a  law  of  faith. 

We  reckon  therefore  that  a  man  is  justified  by  faith  apart  from 
the  works  of  the  law.  Do  we  then  make  the  law  of  none  effect 
through  faith  ?  God  forbid:  Nay,  we  establish  the  law.  —  Romans 
m.  25-28,  31. 


VIII 

THE   CLEARING   UP    OF   THE    MYSTERY 
OF   RIGHTEOUSNESS 

St.  Paul  in  the  passage  still  before  us  speaks  of  the 
manifestation  in  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ  of  the 
divine  redemption  or  propitiation  as  being  not,  I 
think,  so  much  a  vindication,  or  even  a  demonstration, 
as  simply  a  final  elucidation,  through  fulfilment,  of 
God's  eternal  purpose  of  human  salvation  through 
Himself  becoming  our  righteousness  and  our  life.  He 
speaks  elsewhere  of  this  purpose  as  God's  wisdom, 
foreordained  before  the  worlds  unto  our  glory,  but 
only  now  manifested  unto  all  the  nations  for  the 
obedience  of  faith.  Again  he  describes  it  as  The 
mystery  which  hath  been  hid  from  all  ages  and  all 
generations;  but  now  hath  it  been  manifested  to  His 
saints,  to  whom  God  was  pleased  to  make  known  what 
is  the  riches  of  the  glory  of  this  mystery  among  the 
Gentiles,  which  is  —  Christ  in  us,  the  hope  of  glory. 
And  yet  again  he  tells  us  of  God's  Purpose  and  grace, 
which  was  given  us  in  Christ  Jesus  before  times  eternal, 
but  hath  now  been  manifested  by  the  appearing  of  our 
Saviour  Christ  Jesus,  who  abolished  death,  and  brought 
life  and  immortality  to  light  through  the  Gospel. 

97 


98     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

The  plan  or  method  of  human  righteousness  was 
thus  not  an  afterthought  or  an  incidental  or  accidental 
expedient,  but  the  predestined,  because  the  only  real 
or  effectual,  way.  Man  was  designed  from  the  begin- 
ning for  the  freedom  and  self-activity  of  the  sons  of 
God.  But  the  son  and  heir,  as  long  as  he  is  a  child, 
differeth  nothing  from  a  bond-servant,  though  he  be 
lord  of  all;  but  is  under  guardians  and  stewards  until 
the  term  appointed  of  the  father.  So  we  also,  when 
we  were  children,  were  kept  in  bondage  under  the  tutel- 
age and  discipHne  of  the  law.  But  when  the  fulness 
of  the  time  came,  God  sent  forth  His  Son,  bom  of  a 
woman,  bom  under  the  law,  that  He  might  redeem 
them  which  were  under  the  law,  that  we  might  receive 
the  adoption  of  sons.  And  because  ye  are  sons  —  that 
is,  through  the  redemption  or  accomplished  sonship  of 
Jesus  Christ  —  God  sent  forth  the  Spirit  of  His  Son 
into  our  hearts,  crying,  Abba,  Father.  So  we  are  no 
longer  servants  but  sons,  and  if  sons,  then  heirs.  Thus 
not  only  is  the  Gospel  older  than  the  worlds,  the  des- 
tiny of  man  predetermined  before  even  his  existence, 
but  in  the  actual  spiritual  and  moral  history  of  man 
the  Gospel  is  older  than  the  law.  The  Gospel,  in 
promise,  given  to  Abraham  was  not  disannulled  by  the 
law  which  four  hundred  and  thirty  years  after  was 
given  through  Moses.  Let  us  put  that  into  the  language 
not  of  figure  but  of  fact. 

Truths  expressed  in  the  Scriptures  in  the  objective 
or  concrete  form  of  history  may  be  truths  indepen- 
dently of  the  literal  truth  of  the  history.     It  is  not 


Clearing  of  Mystery  of  Righteousness      99 

necessary  to  believe  the  story  of  the  Garden  and  the 
Fall  to  be  historical  fact  in  order  to  find  in  the  story 
the  most  effective  primitive  account  of  spiritual  truths 
and  realities.     To  say  that  Abraham  was  before  Moses, 
the  Gospel  was  prior  to  the  law,  is  to  utter  a  great 
truth  quite  independently  of  what  any  one  may  believe 
about  Abraham  or  about  Moses  as  historical  facts  or 
factors  in  the  actual  history  of  the  world.     The  end  of  ( 
man  is  a  truth  in  the  mind  of  God  and  in  the  meaning  \ 
and  final  cause  of  the  universe  prior  to  any  of  the  m 
means  or  incidents  by  which  that  end  or  destiny  is  at   • 
last  attained.     In  human  fife  the  strict  and  careful 
discipline  and  training  of  childhood  by  external  rule 
or  law  is  a  very  necessary  incident  and  means,  but  it 
is  not  an  end  in  itself.     To  have  learned  obedience  is 
a  necessary  thing,  but  unless  obedience  has  become 
transmuted  into  something  beyond  and  above  itself, 
unless  the  spirit  has  absorbed  and  replaced  the  form, 
the  status  and  nature  of  servants  has  not  been  ex- 
changed for  that  of  sons.     Morality  or  formal  righteous-  "1 
ness  may  indeed  be  the  law  of  the  universe,  but  that  is   [ 
just  precisely  and  distinctively  what  real  righteousness 
is  not.     When  we  say  that  it  is  Love,  we  say  that  it  is 
not  a  formal  law  but  a  living  and  personal  Spirit;  it 
is  not  a  mere  mode  of  things  or  actions,  but  the  hving 
Person  within  the  true  meaning  and  use  of  all  things 
and  actions.     It  was  necessary  that  man  should  be  4 
taught  the  meaning  of  righteousness,  and  the  necessity  ^ 
of  his  own  righteousness,  and  the  insufficiency  of  the  i 
law  and  his  own  will  for  righteousness,  before  finally 


100     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

he  could  receive  the  manifestation  of  the  divine  right- 
eousness in  Christ,  and  the  impartation  to  himself  of 
the  divine  righteousness  by  the  Holy  Ghost.  But  the 
thing  intended  before  the  worlds  and  before  the  law 
was  not  that  God  should  be  a  Creator  of  things,  or  a 
Lord  of  wills,  but  a  Father  of  spirits. 

We  come  now  nearer  down  to  the  argument  imme- 
diately before  us.  In  the  actual  human  redemption 
in  Christ  and  in  the  perfect  setting  forth  in  His  person 
of  the  accomplished  propitiation,  or  reconciUation,  or 
at-one-ment,  wrought  by  His  act  and  realized  in  Him- 
self in  our  humanity,  we  have  the  final  elucidation  or 
clearing  up  of  the  long  mystery,  the  hidden  wisdom, 
of  the  divine  righteousness  and  life.  The  thing  to  be 
cleared  up  first  was  the  difference  of  God's  treatment 
of  unrighteousness  under  the  old  covenant  and  under 
the  new.  Under  the  old  the  treatment  might  be 
expressed  by  the  general  term  jparesis,  the  operation  of 
which  has  been  already  partially  described.  God, 
upon  condition  of  a  certain  necessary  disposition  on 
the  part  of  the  offender  against  the  divine  law,  his 
own  right  attitude  towards  his  offence,  passed  over  the 
offence,  put  it  aside,  or  covered  it  over,  or  remembered 
it  no  more,  and  in  general  treated  it  as  though  it  had 
not  been.  The  condition  or  ground  of  this  pardon  or 
forgiveness  was  that  the  sinner  was  conscious  of  his 
sin  and  repented  him  of  it.  His  acknowledgment  of 
transgression  against  righteousness  was  acknowledg- 
ment of  the  fact  and  claims  of  righteousness,  and  this 
is  the  necessary  first  step  towards  righteousness  itself. 


Clearing  of  Mystery  of  Righteousness     101 

This  right  attitude  was  expressed,  as  has  been  ex- 
plained, in  the  several  offerings  or  sacrifices,  all  of 
which  were  substitutionary  or  vicarious.  And  in  just 
that  fact,  as  I  have  said,  consisted  their  inefficiency 
for  the  perfect  or  complete  ends  of  righteousness. 
They  were  confessions  of  not  being,  not  sufficient  and 
effectual  means  of  being,  righteous.  An  imperfect  and 
impotent  system  like  this,  a  scheme  of  righteousness 
which  went  only  so  far  as  to  convince  and  convict  of 
unrighteousness  and  fell  so  far  short  of  producing 
righteousness,  needed  explanation.  And  in  the  hght 
of  the  wholly  effectual  and  sufficient  mode  or  scheme 
of  righteousness  which  succeeded  and  replaced  it,  it 
found  its  own  explanation.  The  meaning  of  it  lay  in 
the  fact  that  righteousness  by  law  is  only  a  step  or  a, 
stage  in  the  progress  and  attainment  of  actual  or  real! 
righteousness.  It  is  positive  in  its  direction  but  nega- 
tive in  its  reach  or  achievement.  It  demonstrates  that 
man  must  be  righteous,  and  with  a  righteousness  of 
his  own,  but  at  the  same  time  that  he  cannot  be  so 
by  any  process  of  self-righteousness  or  of  self-right- 
eousing.  Any  such  true  effort  results  inevitably  not  in 
attainment  but  in  the  sense  of  failure  and  in  the  knowl- 
edge by  experience  only  of  transgression  and  sin. 
God's  treatment  of  this  condition  and  spiritual  attitude 
was  as  yet,  under  the  old  covenant,  one  only  of  pity 
and  pardon.  His  response  to  man's  only  possible 
right  consciousness  and  disposition  was  the  only  half- 
grace  of  mercy  and  forgiveness.  The  sin  that  the 
man  would  fain  put  away  from  himself  God  put  aside, 


102     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

and  treated  it  as  though  it  were  not  or  had  been  in 
reality  put  away. 

The  response  of  the  Gospel  to  the  human  sense  of 
actual  sin  and  unattainable  holiness  is  not  the  half- 
grace  of  forgiveness  but  the  whole-grace  of  redemption 
and  deliverance.  God  manifests  Himself  in  it,  that  is 
to  say  in  Jesus  Christ,  not  as  pitier  and  pardoner  of 
man  in  his  sin,  but  as  redeemer  and  saviour  of  man 
from  his  sin.  He  is  there  seen,  in  all  the  completeness 
of  justifying,  sanctifying,  and  saving  grace,  as  at  once 
Righteous  and  righteousing  or  Righteouser.  That  is  to 
say.  He  is  seen  not  only  in  the  perfection  of  His  own 
divine  righteousness,  but  —  what  is  just  the  point  in 
the  matter  of  our  salvation  —  in  the  consummated  and 
completed  act  of  becoming,  or  fact  of  having  become, 
our  divine  righteousness.  In  Jesus  Christ  God  is 
literally  become  The  Lord  our  Righteousness. 

In  the  phrase  which  describes  God  in  the  Gospel, 
or  in  Jesus  Christ,  as  being,  as  I  have  translated  it, 
at  once  Righteous  and  Righteouser,  righteousness  in 
us  as  in  Himself,  there  may  arise  again  the  old  question 
of  how  He  is  our  righteousness  —  whether  by  gracious 
\i  imputation  or  by  equally  gracious  impartation.  The 
answer  is.  Certainly  not  by  the  former  only,  and  yet, 
not  less  certainly,  by  the  former  in  the  beginning,  even 
though  by  the  latter  only  in  the  end.  The  point  to  be 
insisted  upon  is  that  in  Jesus  Christ  is  all  and  not  only 
half  of  our  salvation,  that  if  He  is  imputed  to  us  as 
righteousness,  it  is  because  He  is  our  righteousness,  and 
if  He  is  so  to  us  in  faith.  He  will  be  to  us  so  also  in  fact. 


Clearing  of  Mystery  of  Righteousness     103 

While  we  are  upon  the  subject  of  the  progressive 
unfolding  of  this  true  principle  of  the  Gospel,  it  will 
be  in  place  to  trace  the  connection  between  the  Gospel 
in  the  Gospels  and  the  Gospel  in  its  further  elucidation 
or  in  its  more  scientific  or  philosophical  interpretation 
by  St.  Paul.  I  have  elsewhere  undertaken  to  prove 
that  the  all-inclusive  principle  or  germ  of  St.  Paul's 
most  developed  Gospel  is  distinctly  stated  at  the 
beginning  of  every  one  of  the  canonical  Gospels;  is 
repeated  at  the  end  of  one  of  them  as  being  the  sub- 
stance of  what  was  to  be  preached  to  the  world  as  the 
Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ;  was  actually  after  the  Day  of 
Pentecost  so  preached  by  all  the  Jerusalem  Apostles, 
and  preached  exclusively  or  as  practically  the  sole 
burden  of  their  preaching;  and  that  then  finally  it  was 
taken  up,  identically  the  same,  and  developed  by  St. 
Paul  into  the  complete  system  which  he  has  given  us, 
consistent  everywhere  with  itself,  in  his  epistles.  I 
will  here  repeat  the  general  outlines  of  that  argument. 

John  the  Baptist  is  introduced  at  the  beginning  of 
all  the  Gospels  preaching  a  baptism  of  repentance  for 
the  remission  or  putting  away  of  sin.  The  repentance 
he  preached  was  not  in  itself  a  putting  away  of  sin, 
but  only  a  preparation  for,  or  pre-condition  of,  its 
putting  away.  Although  John  was  last  and  greatest 
of  the  prophets,  and  although  the  putting  away  of  sin 
was  only  the  last  and  highest  of  the  demands  of  the 
law,  yet  John's  one,  reiterated,  confession  was  the 
impotence  and  insufficiency  alike  of  him  and  it,  for 
any  real  or  actual  putting  away  of  sin.     That  was  his 


104     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

constant  refrain.  No  preaching  of  his,  no  symboHzing 
of  the  need  he  preached  of  the  putting  away  of  sin,  by 
the  divinely  significant  rite  of  baptism,  could  produce 
or  be  its  actual  putting  away,  —  which  is  at  bottom, 
and  not  its  mere  putting  aside  or  pardoning,  the  real 
thing  needed.  I  baptize  with  water  only,  he  said,  and 
water  cannot  wash  away  sin  or  quicken  in  the  soul 
the  new  birth  of  holiness.  That  requires  something 
beyond  law  or  prophecy,  above  the  powers  of  nature 
or  the  will  of  man;  it  requires  the  thing  witnessed  by 
the  very  weakness  of  the  law  and  anticipated  by  the 
prescience  of  prophecy  —  the  long  expected  promise 
of  the  Spirit,  which  is  the  birth  and  life  of  God  Himself 
in  the  soul  of  man. 

John  the  Baptist's  preaching  and  baptism  contained 
everything  that  belongs  to  religion  except,  as  he  himself 
confessed,  the  power  of  it  or  the  possibility  of  its  reali- 
zation. As  has  been  more  than  once  said,  not  only 
the  primary  condition  but  the  actual  first  step  in 
religion,  by  which  we  mean  the  right  relation  of  man 
to  God,  is  the  knowledge  and  sense  or  feeling  of  his 
own  condition,  his  wants,  and  above  all  his  own  not 
only  shortcomings  or  failures  but  transgressions  and 
sins;  and  not  only  his  sins  but  his  sin.  The  prodigal 
felt  not  only  that  he  had  sinned,  but  that,  deeper  than 
that,  he  was  a  sinner.  Everything  depends  upon  man's 
own  attitude  towards  sin  and  his  own  sin.  That  attitude 
we  express  by  the  word  repentance.  Applying  again 
the  principle  that  a  thing  is  truly  defined  only  by  what 
it  is  in  its  completeness,  I  say  that  repentance  means 


Clearing  of  Mystery  of  Righteousness     105 

the  putting  away  of  sin.  In  the  first  place  it  means 
the  actual  putting  it  away,  and  in  the  second  place  it 
means  the  putting  it  away  by  the  sinner  himself.  Any 
desire  or  any  conferring  of  only  pity  or  pardon  is  only, 
at  the  best,  an  imperfect  or  incomplete  either  repentance 
or  remission.  And  in  the  second  place,  even  God 
Himself  can  in  the  full  sense  confer  the  true  remission 
or  truly  put  away  sin  only  as  He  can  impart  a  true 
repentance  or  the  inward  disposition,  power,  and  act 
of  the  man  in  himself  putting  away  his  sin.  A  real 
aphesis  is  neither  if  it  is  not  both  God's  and  the  man's 
act. 

John  the  Baptist  in  preaching  repentance  prophet- 
ically at  least  preached  faith  also.  He  taught  that  that 
which  religion  as  yet  lacked  was  in  the  approaching 
Kingdom  of  God  about  to  be  added,  that  all  that  it 
had  ever  meant  it  was  now  going  to  be  seen  to  be. 
The  baptism  with  sign  only  would  give  place  to  the 
baptism  with  substance.  The  circumcision  made  with 
hands  would  be  replaced  by  that  of  the  spirit,  and 
the  sacrifices  that  could  not  take  away  sin  should  be 
abolished  for  one  that  could  and  would.  The  law 
which  had  hitherto  been  above  and  beyond  man  was 
by  the  faith  and  obedience  of  Jesus  Christ  and  through 
the  power  and  operation  of  the  eternal  Spirit  to  be 
brought  down  from  heaven,  or  up  again  from  the 
death  to  which  sin  had  consigned  it,  and  seated  upon 
its  proper  throne  in  the  minds  and  hearts  and  lives 
of  men.  I  repeat  that  in  what  John  preached  as 
prepared  for  by  law,  and  foreseen  and  longed  for  by 


106     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

prophets,  and  about  to  be  fulfilled  in  Jesus  Christ  — 
viz. :  the  coming  of  God's  own  kingdom  of  holiness, 
righteousness,  and  divine  Hfe  in  man  —  we  have  the 
exact  and  complete  matter  of  the  whole  Gospel. 

Now  just  exactly  what  all  the  Gospels  begin  with, 
in  St.  Luke,  who  is  the  one  to  describe  the  transition 
of  the  Gospel  from  the  hands  of  the  Lord  to  those  of 
the  Apostles,  the  record  of  the  ministry  of  Jesus  Himself 
also  ends  with:  Thus  it  is  written,  are  our  Lord's  own 
last  words,  that  the  Christ  should  suffer,  and  rise  again 
from  the  dead;  and  that  repentance  and  remission  of 
sins  should  be  preached  in  His  name  unto  all  nations. 
Ye  are  witnesses  of  these  things.  And  behold,  I  send 
forth  the  promise  of  my  Father  upon  you ;  but  tarry  ye 
in  the  city,  until  ye  be  clothed  with  power  from  on 
high.  The  meaning  that  underlies  all  the  human 
experiences  of  Jesus  Christ,  His  suffering,  death,  and 
resurrection  from  the  dead,  is  this:  that  in  these  we 
see  in  Him,  and  by  these  we  shall  attain  in  Him,  the 
death  to  and  from  sin,  the  repentance  that  is  unto  — 
that  means,  that  attains,  that  is  —  the  putting  away  of 
sin;  or,  what  is  the  same  thing  on  its  positive  side, 
the  faith  that  sees  in  Christ,  and  that  in  Him  achieves 
and  attains,  the  putting  on  of  the  holiness,  righteous- 
ness, and  life  of  God. 

Once  more,  what  according  to  John  the  Baptist  was 
to  be  the  Gospel,  what  according  to  St.  Luke  our  Lord 
declares  in  His  last  words  is  to  be  preached  in  His 
name  as  being  the  Gospel,  the  Jerusalem  apostles 
with  St.  Peter  at  their  head  did  actually  preach  as  the 


Clearing  of  Mystery  of  Righteousness     107 

Gospel.  The  God  of  our  fathers  —  they  declared  — 
raised  up  Jesus,  whom  ye  slew.  Him  did  God  exalt 
to  be  a  Prince  and  a  Saviour,  for  to  give  repentance 
and  remission  of  sins.  And  we  are  witnesses  of  these 
things;  and  so  is  the  Holy  Ghost,  whom  God  hath 
given  to  them  that  obey  Him.  The  distinctive  gift  of 
the  Gospel  is,  what  was  accomplished  in  the  death 
and  resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  effectual  putting 
away  of  sin  by  death  to  it,  and  the  effectual  putting 
on  of  holiness  and  life  by  actual  participation  of  the 
spirit  and  power  of  God  in  Christ. 

How  exactly  this  teaching  of  the  other  apostles  was 
the  substance  of  St.  Paul's  whole  doctrine  will  appear, 
as  everywhere  else,  so  clearly  enough,  for  example,  in 
the  fifteenth  chapter  of  1  Corinthians.  There  St.  Paul 
declares  what  his  Gospel  is,  and  warns  us  that,  if 
Christ  be  not  risen,  then  are  his  preaching  and  our 
faith  alike  emptied  of  their  content,  —  For,  says  he,  if 
Christ  is  not  risen,  we  are  yet  in  our  sins,  and  those 
who  have  fallen  asleep  in  Him  have  perished. 

We  might  go  on  to  show  the  identity  of  St.  John's 
much  later,  and  quite  independent,  declaration  of  what 
the  Gospel  of  Christ  is.  We  know,  says  he,  that  He 
was  manifested  to  take  away  sin.  And  in  Him  is  no 
sin.  Why  was  there  in  Him  as  man  no  sin  ?  Because 
He  himself  abolished  sin  in  the  flesh.  And  how  as 
man  did  He  do  that?  By  resisting  it  unto  blood,  or 
unto  death,  and  by  the  victory  over  it  of  His  own 
human  holiness  in  the  spirit  and  power  of  God  through 
faith.     The  power  of  God  thus  manifested  in  Him  is 


108     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

the  self-same  power  with  which  God  works  in  all  who 
are  in  Him.  For  not  only  in  Him  is  there  no  sin,  but 
—  Whosoever  abideth  in  Him  sinneth  not. 

It  is  easy  enough  to  say,  but  I  do  not  think  that  it 
is  possible  upon  right  and  sufficient  reflection  to  believe, 
that  this  consistency  of  fundamental  principle  running 
through  the  Gospels,  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  the 
Epistles  of  Sts.  Paul,  Peter,  and  John,  and  the  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews,  is  in  any  part  of  it  a  matter  of  later 
arrangement  or  accommodation,  —  as  for  example  that 
the  teaching  of  John  the  Baptist,  of  our  Lord  as  re- 
ported at  the  close  of  St.  Luke's  Gospel,  and  of  St. 
Peter  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  has  been  made 
subsequently  to  conform  to  the  essential  idea  of  St. 
Paul's  developed  doctrine.  The  agreement  is  too 
natural  and  unconscious,  and  at  the  same  time  too 
deep  and  real. 

In  concluding  his  statement  of  the  righteousness  of 
God,  as  distinguished  from  that  of  the  law,  St.  Paul 
remarks  of  it  that  it  excludes  all  boasting  on  the  part 
of  man.  I  cannot  think  that  the  Apostle's  meaning  is 
wholly  expressed  by  the  explanation  that  any  claim  of 
human  merit  is  shut  out  in  a  system  which  is  one  not 
of  works  but  of  faith.  Boasting,  pride  or  conceit,  the 
claim  of  merit  or  self-righteousness,  is  as  much  out  of 
place  in  the  works  of  the  Christian  as  in  his  faith,  his 
fides  sola.  I  am  not  sure  that  that  side  of  it  is  not 
more  than  the  other  in  the  mind  of  St.  Paul.  He  does 
not  hesitate  to  speak  of  his  own  works  or  labours,  nor 
to  claim  that  they  are  more  abundant  than  those  of 


Clearing  of  Mystery  of  Righteousness     109 

others,  while  never  forgetting  to  add,  Yet  not  I,  but 
the  grace  of  God  which  was  with  me.  I  labour  also, 
he  says,  striving  according  to  His  working,  which 
worketh  in  me  mightily.  And  he  bids  us  Christians 
to  work  out  our  own  salvation  with  fear  and  trembling, 
remembering  that  it  is  God  who  worketh  in  us  both 
to  will  and  to  do.  He  claims  that  the  sufficiency  of 
his  own  abundant  ministry  is  of  God  and  not  himself, 
and  seeks  to  exercise  it  always  as  though  God  did  so 
through  him.  I  dwell  on  this  not  to  prove  that  the 
Gospel  of  Christ  is  a  system  of  the  most  strenuous 
works  as  well  as  of  faith,  because  I  do  not  suppose 
any  one  to  deny  this,  but  in  order  to  make  occasion  to 
bring  out  an  aspect  of  Christianity  which  is  of  infinite 
interest  and  importance,  and  which  I  think  was  in  the 
mind  of  St.  Paul.  True  Christianity,  so  far  from 
limiting  or  lowering  human  freedom  and  personal 
activity,  raises  these  to  the  highest  pitch,  far  beyond 
the  possibility  of  any  other  system  of  life  or  action. 
It  bids  us  be  able,  and  gives  us  the  ability,  to  be  all 
things,  do  all  things,  endure  all  things.  It  raises  our 
faith,  our  hope,  our  desire  and  will,  our  purpose,  and 
our  power,  up  to  the  standard  and  goal  of  the  divine 
perfection  itself.  There  is  nothing  that  so  exalts  man's 
conception  of  himself,  or  that  engenders  and  encour- 
ages so  high  and  holy  an  ambition  in  him  —  even  to 
the  becoming  as  God  Himself.  And  yet  the  more  the 
Christian  covets  earnestly  the  best  gifts,  and  is  ambi- 
tious of  the  highest  that  even  God  can  give  or  make 
him,  the  more  modest  and  humble  he  grows;  because 


1 


110     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

the  more  he  truly  attains  or  accomplishes,  the  more  con- 
scious he  is  that  it  is  all  not  of  himself  but  of  God. 
The  greatness  is  indeed  all  his  own,  but  the  merit  and 
the  praise  of  it  is  all  Another's.  What  has  he  that  he 
has  not  received  ?  It  is  not  he,  but  God  in  him.  This 
explains  the  anomaly  that  the  most  selfless  and  modest 
human  being  that  ever  lived,  the  meekest  and  lowliest 
in  spirit,  was  He  who  made  and  established  for  himself 
the  most  unhmited  claim.  He  was  what  He  was  — 
and  He  was  everything  —  just  because  of  Himself  He 
was  and  could  do  nothing,  because  He  sought  not  His 
own  glory  but  only  that  of  Him  from  and  of  whom 
He  was. 

And  we  can  say  something  like  it  of  St.  Paul  himself. 
He  was,  as  we  have  said,  of  all  the  servants  of  Christ, 
the  most  abundant  in  the  labours  of  Christ,  and  he 
was  not  unconscious  of  all  that  he  had  been  and  had 
done  in  the  service  of  his  Lord.  But  if  any  one  ever 
did,  in  sincerity  and  truth,  accept  for  himself  all  the 
grace,  and  give  to  God  all  the  merit  and  the  glory,  of 
his  greatness,  it  was  the  great  Apostle. 

One  more  word  before  St.  Paul  has  done  with  his 
statement  of  the  Gospel:  What  have  we  done  with  the 

^  law.^     Have  we  made  it  of  none  effect  through  faith? 

I  On  the  contrary,  we  have  established  it.  Not  only 
have  we  restored  it  to  its  equality  with  God,  by  exalting 
man's  standard  of  obligation  to  the  height  of  the  divine 

I  perfection,  but  we  have  laid  open  the  way  by  which 
f  man  can  discharge  that  obhgation  by  attaining  that 
perfection. 


IX 
THE   FAITH   OF  ABRAHAM 


What  saith  the  scripture?  Abraham  believed  God,  and  it  was 
reckoned  to  him  for  righteousness.  Now  to  him  that  worketh,  the 
reward  is  not  reckoned  as  of  grace,  but  as  of  debt.  But  to  him  that 
worketh  not,  but  beheveth  on  Him  that  justifieth  the  ungodly,  his 
faith  is  reckoned  for  righteousness. 

Even  as  David  also  pronounceth  blessing  upon  the  man,  unto 
whom  God  reckoneth  righteousness  apart  from  works,  saying. 
Blessed  are  they  whose  iniquities  are  forgiven,  and  whose  sins  are 
covered.  Blessed  is  the  man  unto  whom  the  Lord  will  not  reckon 
sin. 

To  Abraham  his  faith  was  reckoned  for  righteousness,  —  that  he 
might  be  the  father  of  all  them  that  beUeve. 

For  not  through  the  law  was  the  promise  to  Abraham  or  to  his 
seed,  that  he  should  be  heir  of  the  world,  but  through  the  righteous- 
ness of  faith.  For  the  law  worketh  wrath;  for  where  there  is  no  law, 
neither  is  there  transgression. 

For  this  cause  it  is  of  faith,  that  it  may  be  according  to  grace;  to 
the  end  that  the  promise  may  be  sure  to  all  the  seed;  not  to  that  only 
which  is  of  the  law,  but  to  that  also  which  is  of  the  faith  of  Abraham, 
who  is  the  father  of  us  all  before  him  whom  he  beheved,  even  God, 
who  quickeneth  the  dead,  and  caUeth  the  things  that  are  not  as  though 
they  were. 

Who  in  hope  believed  against  hope.  Without  being  weakened  in 
faith  he  considered  his  own  body  now  as  good  as  dead  (he  being  an 
hundred  years  old),  and  the  deadness  of  Sarah's  womb;  yea,  looking 
unto  the  promise  of  God,  he  wavered  not  through  unbelief,  but  waxed 
strong  through  faith,  giving  glory  to  God,  and  being  fully  assured 
that,  what  He  had  promised,  He  was  able  also  to  perform.  Where- 
fore it  was  reckoned  unto  him  for  righteousness. 

Now  it  was  not  written  for  his  sake  alone,  that  it  was  reckoned 
unto  him;  but  for  our  sake  also,  unto  whom  it  shall  be  reckoned,  who 
believe  on  Him  who  raised  Jesus  our  Lord  from  the  dead.  —  RoaiANS 
IV.  3-8,  9,  11,  13,  15-24. 


IX 


THE   FAITH   OF   ABRAHAM 

St.  Paul's  position  is  not  merely  that  the  Gospel 
was  historically  prior  to  the  law,  but  that  in  principle 
it  is  the  normal  and  only  possible  true  or  right  status 
which  man  can  occupy  in  his  personal  relation  with 
God.  The  law  itself  by  the  inconsistency  of  its  insist- 
ence and  its  impotence  is  a  witness  for  the  truth  and 
necessity  of  that  which  has  in  it  the  power  to  produce 
that  upon  which  it  insists.  In  illustration  and  proof 
of  the  evangelical  principle  before  as  well  as  under 
the  law,  examples  are  given  of  the  moral  status  before 
God  especially  of  Abraham  but  also  of  David. 

Abraham  believed  God,  and  that  was  accounted  to 
him  for  righteousness.  He  is  the  type  of  the  nearest 
nearness  to  God,  the  most  accepted  and  acknowledged 
right  relation  with  Him,  possible  for  man,  and  the 
ground  upon  which  he  stands  in  that  relation  is  dis- 
tinctly stated  not  to  be  that  of  merit,  or  of  a  righteous- 
ness in  himself  which  could  justify  him  before  God, 
but  to  be  that  of  faith  in  God  as  One  who  accepts  and 
justifies  the  contrite  and  penitent  unrighteous.  Now 
let  us  analyze  and  interpret  this  faith  of  Abraham.  It 
was  primarily  a  general  and  practical  kind  of  faith; 

113 


114     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

there  are  no  speculative  questions  or  questionings 
involved  in  it.  Abraham  beUeved  God;  he  trusted 
and  depended  upon  Him  absolutely  and  without  limit 
or  reserve.  But  not  only  did  this  faith  extend  in  all 
directions  and  to  all  matters,  but  there  are  also  distinct 
evidences  in  it  of  specialization  and  particular  direc- 
tion. The  indefinite  begins  to  become  definite  when 
faith  assumes  the  form  of  trusting  the  love  and  goodness 
that  God  is,  even  when  least  conscious  of  any  worthi- 
ness or  most  conscious  of  every  unworthiness  of  that 
love  and  goodness.  God  accepts  that  trust  and  con- 
fidence on  our  part,  —  upon  the  express  and  definite 
condition  of  our  own  right  spiritual  and  moral  con- 
sciousness in  the  matter.  Observe  that  there  is  a 
condition  —  and  indeed  a  conditio  sine  qua  non.  Why 
does  not  the  love  and  goodness  of  God  go  to  what 
some  conceive  to  be  the  more  complete  limit  of  blessing 
us  without  any  condition  at  all.^  Why  must  there  be 
the  absolute  condition  of  repentance  and  faith  on  our 
part  ?  Because  God  cannot  bless  us  with  the  spiritual 
and  moral  blessedness  which  our  own  nature  demands, 
with  which  alone  law  and  Gospel  have  to  do,  in  which 
our  very  personality  consists,  apart  from  or  without 
our  own  consciousness  and  co-operation  in  the  matter. 
Our  own  attitude  and  action  towards  sin  and  holiness 
must  be  constituents  and  co-ordinates  in  the  matter  of 
the  blessing,  or  the  blessing  cannot  exist.  We  cannot 
be  freed  from  sin  save  through  and  by  our  own  putting 
away  our  sin,  and  we  cannot  be  made  holy  save  through 
our  own  love  and  will  and  activity  of  holiness.     God 


The  Faith  of  Abraham  115 

can  do  everything  in  the  man,  but  only  in  the  man 
who  has  the  will  and  the  faith  to  do  everything  in  Him. 
He  can  even  give  us  all  the  will  and  the  faith  necessary 
as  our  part,  if  only  we  resist  and  reject  not  the  grace 
that  imparts  it;  and  that  longs  and  strives  to  impart  it: 
—  How  would  I !  —  and  ye  would  not. 

When  St.  Paul  describes  Abraham  as  coming  to  and 
being  accepted  of  God,  not  upon  the  ground  of  his 
own  merit  or  with  claim  of  his  own  righteousness,  but 
with  the  spiritual  insight  to  trust  himself  to  the  divine 
grace,  he  is  describing  that  grace  too  as  the  divine  in- 
sight to  recognize  in  Abraham's  sense  of  sin,  and  faith 
in  God  notwithstanding  his  sin,  the  human  condition 
of  its  impartation.  Abraham  went  no  further,  perhaps, 
than  to  see  in  God  the  grace  that  accepts  the  sinner. 
If  he  could  have  gone  the  full  length  of  his  own  faith, 
he  would  have  seen  in  Christ  that  God's  accepting  the 
sinner,  not  as  what  he  is  but  as  what  he  believes  in 
and  would  be,  is  His  way,  and  the  only  divinely  prac- 
ticable way,  of  making  him,  or  of  his  own  becoming, 
the  thing  he  would  and  should  be.  He  would  have 
known  too  more  perfectly,  as  all  the  children  of  his 
faith  know  just  in  proportion  to  the  perfection  of  their 
faith,  that  the  present  peace  through  faith  of  those 
who  are  still  sinners  is  only  the  foretaste  and  beginning 
of  the  real  peace  which  we  shall  enjoy  when  we  are  no 
longer  sinners.  But  it  is  a  foretaste  and  a  beginning, 
and  God  is  true  and  just  to  recognize  in  those  who  as 
yet  have  only  the  sense  of  their  sin  and  faith  in  His 
righteousness,  not  only  the  necessary  condition,  but  all 


116     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

the  potential  and  even  something  of  the  actual  presence 
of  His  own  righteousness  in  Christ. 

David's  faith,  too,  in  describing  the  blessedness  of 
the  man  whose  iniquities  are  forgiven  and  his  sins 
covered,  to  whom  the  Lord  will  not  impute  or  reckon 
sin,  is  thoroughly  evangelical  or  on  the  line  of  the 
perfect  salvation  through  Christ.  But  he  does  not  see 
all  the  way  to  the  full  end  actually  accompHshed  in 
Christ.  I  not  only  admit  that  the  aphesis  described 
by  him  is  no  more  than  the  paresis  which  St.  Paul 
describes  as  the  limit  attained  by  grace  before  its  final 
triumph  in  Christ,  but  I  freely  admit  that  the  word 
in  itself  does  not  necessarily  mean  anything  more  than 
a  putting  away  by  forgiveness,  and  that  actually  in  the 
New  Testament  it  frequently  does  not  go  beyond  that 
restricted  meaning.  But  I  hold  that  implicit  in  God's 
gift  of  remission  in  Jesus  Christ,  and  equally  so  in 
man's  acceptance  of  it,  there  is  involved  and  included, 
out  of  and  beyond  the  initial  grace  of  acceptance  and 
pardon,  the  ultimate  and  real  grace  of  freedom  and 
holiness.  St.  John's  teaching  does  not  go  beyond  St. 
Paul's,  when  he  describes,  first,  the  purpose  of  our 
Lord's  coming  to  be  the  taking  away  of  sin;  secondly, 
the  accomplishment  of  that  purpose  in  the  act  and 
fact  of  His  own  sinlessness  or  victory  in  our  nature 
over  sin;  and,  thirdly,  the  proper  end  and  result  of  the 
divine  purpose  and  its  accomplishment  in  Christ  in  our 
actual  freedom  from  sin  in  and  through  Him. 

I  am  not  so  much  concerned  in  the  actual  historical 
fact  and  meaning  of  Abraham's  faith  as  I  am  in  St. 


The  Faith  of  Abraham  117 

Paul's  understanding  and  application  of  it.  The  Apos- 
tle's desire  is  not  so  much  to  find  in  the  events  of  the 
New  Testament  literal  proof  and  confirmation  of  the 
Old,  as  it  is  to  find  in  the  Old  Testament  language  and 
ideas  and  illustrations  with  which  to  express  and  explain 
the  independent  and  indisputable  facts  of  the  New. 
And  it  is,  at  the  very  least,  wonderful  to  what  an  ex- 
tent the  entire  texture  of  the  Old  Testament  lends  itself 
to  this  use,  is  capable  of  being  applied  to  events  which 
almost  as  much  fulfil  as  they  transcend  its  meaning. 

Let  us  then  review  the  story  of  Abraham's  faith  in 
its  direct  application  to  St.  Paul's  exposition  of  the 
faith  in  Christ  that  justifies  and  saves.  Abraham's 
faith  I  described  as  being,  first,  a  general  one,  and 
altogether  practical  and  not  speculative.  Faith  in  God 
and  in  the  essential  verities  of  religion,  it  has  been  said, 
is  not  so  much  a  conclusion  of  reason  as  a  deed  or 
achievement  of  character.  The  more  one's  whole  mind 
and  heart  and  will,  one's  entire  personality  and  life,  are 
exalted  to  unity  and  harmony  with  the  spiritual  and 
moral  as  well  as  physical  or  natural  truth  and  order  of 
the  world,  the  more  one  is  prepared  and  disposed  to 
believe  in  and  trust  Him  who  is  the  Reality  of  them 
all.  Abraham  is  the  type  of  those  who  are  great  enough 
in  themselves  to  know  that  God  is  and  that  He  is  the 
end  and  reward  of  all  who  seek  and  find  Him. 

But  immediately,  as  we  saw,  St.  Paul  specializes  or 
defines  Abraham's  faith  as  being  in  God  who  accepts 
and  justifies  the  ungodly  or  unrighteous;  justifies  him, 
that  is,  of  course,  not  on  the  ground  of  his  being,  but 


118     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

on  the  ground  of  his  knowing  and  feeling  himself  to 
be,  ungodly  and  unrighteous,  and  coming  notwith- 
standing to  Him  who,  just  because  He  is  love  and 
grace,  is  the  fountain  and  source  of  all  righteousness. 
There  is  no  faith  so  true  and  strong  as  that  which 
brings  us  to  God  in  and  in  spite  of,  and  even  because 
of,  our  sins. 

Abraham's  faith,  however,  does  not  stop  here.  It 
attaches  itself  to  a  particular  and  definite  promise  and 
hope,  which  is  at  once  God's  meaning,  and  its  own 
more  or  less  conscious  and  understood  meaning,  in 
the  whole  matter.  The  promise  of  God  before  and 
under  the  law  and  its  fulfilment  in  the  Gospel,  as  the 
promise  made  to  Abraham,  or  made  to  faith  in  his 
person,  is  the  subject-matter  of  both  Testaments. 
What  is  the  substance  or  content  of  that  promise  and 
fulfilment  ?  Assuredly  it  is  not  only  the  clearer  revela- 
tion and  assurance  of  the  fact  that  God  is  faithful  and 
free  to  justify  the  unrighteous,  to  accept  and  treat 
him  as  righteous.  So  much  of  justification  and  salva- 
tion is  not  all,  nor  the  essence,  of  the  Gospel.  Here, 
I  think,  the  true  application  and  likeness  or  analogy 
of  Abraham's  faith  to  that  of  and  in  Christ  comes  in 
and  fills  out  the  whole  great  truth  of  God's  gift  of 
righteousness  to  the  world. 

The  promise  made  to  Abraham  is  the  promise  made 
before  the  worlds,  planted  in  the  very  nature  and 
running  through  all  the  history  of  man,  —  the  promise 
to  Faith,  that  it  shall  inherit  and  possess  the  earth, 
that  through  it  all  races  and  nations  of  the  earth  shall 


The  Faith  of  Abraham  119 

receive  and  share  the  full  and  final  blessing  and  blessed- 
ness of  God  Himself,  His  righteousness  and  His  life. 
We  see  in  this  blessed  promise  and  hope  the  source 
and  inspiration  of  the  indestructible  Hebrew  conviction 
that,  all  appearances  and  contradictions  to  the  contrary 
notwithstanding,  righteousness  shall  prevail  and  the 
kingdoms  of  the  world  shall  become  the  Kingdom  of 
God.  Now  this  promise  was  made  to  Abraham 
through  his  seed;  and  the  promise  was  deferred  until 
it  was  as  impossible  for  Abraham  to  beget  as  for 
Sarah  to  conceive  the  seed  upon  which  the  promise 
depended.  The  power,  however,  of  God's  Word  to 
fulfil  itself,  and  the  sufficiency  of  Abraham's  faith  for 
the  fulfilment  through  it  of  what  God  had  promised, 
triumphed  over  the  natural  impossibilities  in  the  way, 
and  the  seed  was  given.  The  proto-fulfilment  in  Isaac 
was  itself  a  hfe  out  of  death :  for,  in  him,  There  sprang 
of  one,  and  him  as  good  as  dead,  so  many  as  the  stars 
of  heaven  in  multitude,  and  as  the  sand  which  is  by 
the  seashore  innumerable.  Abraham  became  physi- 
cally the  father  of  many  nations.  But  that  is  not  what 
St.  Paul  had  chiefly  in  mind.  As  Aristotle  was  said  to 
be  the  master  of  them  that  think  or  know,  so  Abraham 
is  still  the  father  of  all  who  believe.  His  spiritual 
children  have  far  outnumbered  those  of  his  flesh. 

Thus  Abraham  became  the  father  of  us  all  before 
Him  whom  He  believed;  and  thus  God,  first  to  him, 
manifested  Himself  as  quickener  of  the  dead,  and  caller 
of  things  that  are  not  as  though  they  were.  But  how 
did  God  so  manifest  Himself  to  Abraham .?     Abraham 


120     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

did  beget  and  Sarah  did  conceive  and  bear  the  promised 
seed.  God's  power  to  fulfil  His  word  manifested  itself 
in  their  own  power  to  fulfil  it.  It  was  in  and  through 
them  that  God  manifested  Himself,  and  the  manifes- 
tation consisted  first  in  a  power  in  them  to  produce, 
and  then  in  their  actual  production  of  an  issue  which 
was  at  once  born  of  them  and  yet  not  born  of  them  but 
of  God  in  them.  Herein  lay  the  likeness  between  the 
proto-fulfilment  in  Isaac  and  the  real  fulfilment  in 
Christ  of  the  divine  promise  made  to  faith  in  the 
symbolic  or  representative  person  of  Abraham,  of  which 
we  will  now  attempt  the  larger  interpretation. 

All  the  Old  Testament  promises  fulfilled  in  Christ 
were  primarily  promises  made  to  humanity,  and  to  be 
fulfilled  finally  only  in  the  general  life  and  destiny  of 
man.  The  interpretation  of  one  such  promise,  which 
will  do  for  all,  may  be  studied  in  the  second  chapter  of 
the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews.  There  is  a  promise  made 
to  man  that,  though  for  a  time  made  lower  than  the 
angels,  he  shall  be  exalted  above  them  and  to  the  head 
of  God's  creation.  Now  as  yet  we  see  this  promise 
very  far  from  fulfilled  in  man,  or  in  humanity  at  large, 
but  we  do  see  it  most  completely  fulfilled  in  One  Man, 
Christ  Jesus;  and  fulfilled  in  Him  as  head  and  repre- 
sentative and  forerunner  of  all.  It  pleased  God,  for 
and  through  whom  are  all  things,  in  bringing  many 
sons  to  glory,  to  perfect  (first)  the  Captain  of  their 
salvation.  The  promises  are  made  generally  to  man; 
they  are  fulfilled  first  in  the  Son  of  man;  and  then 
through  Him  they  are  fulfilled  in  all  who  are  in  Him. 


The  Faith  of  Abraham  121 

So  the  promise  made  to  Abraham  is  a  promise  made 
to  faith  in  general;  it  is  for  his  seed,  in  the  sense  that 
it  is  for  those  in  all  nations  of  the  earth  who  are  the 
children  and  inheritors  of  his  faith.  It  is  true  that  the 
Apostle  says  elsewhere  that  the  promise  is  made  not  to 
Abraham's  seeds y  meaning  many,  but  to  his  seid, 
meaning  one,  that  is,  Christ;  but  then  he  goes  on  imme- 
diately to  say  that  as  many  of  us  as  are  Christ's,  or  in 
Christ,  are  Abraham's  seed,  and  heirs  according  to  the 
promise. 

What  then,  coming  down  at  last  to  the  point,  was 
the  distinctive  promise  made  to  faith  in  Abraham  and 
fulfilled  for  faith  in  Christ  ?  There  is  to  the  question, 
not  a  double  answer,  but  a  double  mode  of  answering. 
In  the  first  place,  in  the  very  fact  of  Jesus  Christ  in 
our  humanity  we  have  that  which  is  a  quickening  of 
the  dead,  a  new  birth  from  the  dead  loins  and  the 
barren  womb  of  our  unassisted  humanity.  That  which 
was  bom  into  the  world  in  His  person  was  bom  of  the 
world,  and  yet  was  not  born  of  the  world  but  of  God 
in  the  world.  He  was  and  yet  was  not  son  of  man, 
in  that  He  was  son  preeminently  of  God,  and  son  of 
man  only  as  Son  of  God  in  man.  And  in  the  second 
place,  if  we  look  away  from  Who  Christ  is  in  Himself 
to  What  He  is  in  us,  the  lesson  from  Abraham's  faith 
becomes  yet  more  intelligible  to  us.  Jesus  Christ  is 
God  in  us  for  holiness,  righteousness,  and  life;  He  is 
God  our  holiness,  righteousness,  and  life.  The  right- 
eousness bom  in  Him  into  the  world  is  a  righteousness 
not  of  nature,  nor  of  the  will  of  man,  but  of  God. 


122     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

It  is  ours,  and  yet  it  is  emphatically  not  ours  but  God's 
in  us.  And  yet  God  fulfils  Himself  in  us  only  in  that 
which  is  ourselves  also  and  our  own.  Our  righteous- 
ness is  as  divine  as  it  is  human,  and  as  human  as  it  is 
divine.  It  is  just  precisely  as  divine-human  as  our 
Lord  Himself  is,  because  it  is  in  fact  not  ourselves 
but  He  in  us.  Our  righteousness,  like  Isaac,  is  child 
not  of  nature  but  of  grace.  It  is  indeed  of  ourselves, 
in  that  it  is  only  what  we  ourselves  are  and  do,  but  it 
is  also  not  of  ourselves,  because  it  is  only  of  the  power 
of  God  in  us  to  will  and  to  do,  and  so  to  be. 

The  righteousness  of  God  looked  at  in  this  way  is 
not  alone  that  beginning  of  faith  which  sees  already  in 
God  the  power  and  the  promise  and  so  the  certitude 
of  our  future  righteousness,  but  it  is  the  same  faith 
viewed  as  grown  to  fruition,  God  wholly  in  us  and  we 
wholly  in  God  unto  the  attainment  of  an  actual  com- 
plete righteousness  of  God  in  ourselves. 

We  can  readily  now,  I  hope,  go  on  with  St.  Paul  to 
see  how  Abraham's  faith  is  ours  in  kind ;  and  ours  is 
accounted  righteousness  to  us  as  his  was  to  him,  if,  as 
he  became  the  father  of  Isaac  and  of  us  all  by  trans- 
cending the  possibilities  of  nature  and  the  powers  of 
his  own  flesh  and  will  through  faith  in  God's  word, 
we  too,  in  the  more  perfect  Word  of  God,  which  is 
Jesus  Christ  Himself,  see  and  find  all  our  common 
humanity  raised  from  the  death  of  its  own  unrighteous- 
ness, and  impotence  for  righteousness,  into  the  divine 
power  for  righteousness  which  is  through  the  indwell- 
ing of  God  Himself  in  us,  our  Righteousness. 


THE    STATUS    OF    THE 
CHRISTIAN   BELIEVER 


Being  therefore  justified  by  faith,  let  us  have  peace  with  God 
through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ;  through  whom  also  we  have  had 
our  access  by  faith  into  this  grace  wherein  we  stand;  and  let  us  re- 
joice in  hope  of  the  glory  of  God;  and  not  only  so,  but  let  us  also 
rejoice  in  our  tribulations:  knowing  that  tribulation  worketh  pa- 
tience; and  patience,  probation;  and  probation,  hope;  and  hope 
putteth  not  to  shame;  because  the  love  of  God  hath  been  shed  abroad 
in  our  hearts  through  the  Holy  Ghost  which  was  given  unto  us.  — 
Romans  V.  1-5. 


THE   STATUS    OF   THE   CHRISTIAN 
BELIEVER 

We  come  now  to  describe  more  practically  and  par- 
ticularly the  state  or  status  of  the  Christian  believer 
before  God.  As  that  status  is  represented  as  havng 
been  fixed  or  determined  for  us  by  an  act  of  our  Lord, 
the  act  of  His  death,  and  as  that  death  is  described  as 
a  sacrifice  and  in  general  in  terms  of  the  ancient  ritual 
system  of  the  Jews,  it  is  a  good  time  to  begin  to  ask 
ourselves  to  what  extent,  or  whether,  we  are  still  to  be 
bound  in  the  expression  of  our  Christianity  by  that 
obsolete  phraseology  and  circle  of  ideas.  I  will  answer 
the  question  at  present  only  so  far  as  to  endeavour  to 
determine  the  use  we  are  going  to  make  just  now  of 
that  phraseology.  To  go  no  further  as  yet,  I  am 
convinced  that  the  term  sacrifice  and  the  idea  or  prin- 
ciple for  which  it  stands  can  never  be  dispensed  with. 
To  begin  with,  it  is  not  Jewish  but  universal,  and 
although  it  has  been  and  still  is  undergoing  the  refining 
and  purifying  treatment  to  which  all  human  thought 
and  feehng  needs  to  be  continuously  subject,  yet  all 
future  progress  in  the  matter  can  be  only  in  the  direc- 
tion of  its  better  understanding  and  fuller  appropria- 

125 


126     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

tion.  At  the  same  time  it  ought  to  be  finally  decided 
that  we  are  going  to  interpret  the  meaning  of  sacrifice 
by  the  universal  and  eternal  truth  of  it  realized  in  the 
life  and  death  of  Christ,  and  not  going  to  bring  that 
truth  down  to  fit  into  the  little  system  of  Jewish,  or 
any  other  incomplete  and  imperfect  human,  thought 
or  understanding  of  it.  In  other  words,  we  shall 
interpret  the  sacrifice  of  Christ  by  itself,  or  in  its 
independent  and  inherent  significance,  and  make  use 
of  all  prior  meanings  or  uses  of  sacrifice  as  only  pointing 
to  and  not  at  all  sufficing  to  express  or  explain  it. 

One  other  principle  of  method  or  procedure  I  wish 
to  make  plain.  As  humanity  will  never  be  known 
except  in  the  completeness  of  its  exposition  in  Jesus 
Christ,  so  Jesus  Christ  cannot  be  known  except  in 
most  essential  and  universal  terms  of  our  humanity. 
To  understand  our  Lord  in  any  act  or  situation  of 
human  hfe  it  is  necessary  to  understand  what  is  the 
eternally  proper  or  right  human  attitude  or  action  in 
that  situation.  And  so  in  general  I  would  say  that 
what  Jesus  Christ  did  in  our  humanity  in  order  to  be 
our  salvation  was  just  precisely  what  humanity  needed 
of  itself  to  be  and  to  do  in  order  to  be  saved.  We 
exactly  express  or  explain  any  act  of  His,  and  so  the 
supreme  and  decisive  act,  when  we  say  that  humanity 
did  it  in  His  person,  and  that  it  was  just  precisely  what 
humanity  needed  to  do  in  order  to  its  own  redemption 
and  completion.  In  His  person  humanity  righted  itself 
with  God,  redeemed  itself  from  sin,  raised  itself  from 
death.     And  how  did  it  do  so  ?    As  alone,  in  the  nature 


Status  of  the  Christian  Believer      127 

of  the  thing  and  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  it  could  do 
so,  —  by  undergoing  that  spiritual,  moral,  and  natural 
change  or  transition,  from  the  evil  it  needed  to  be 
saved  from  to  the  good  it  needed  to  be  saved  to,  which 
was  in  itself  necessary  to  constitute  its  salvation.  It 
needed  by  a  personal  act  of  its  own  to  pass  from  sin 
into  holiness  and  from  death  into  life,  and  it  could  do 
so  only  by  such  an  attitude  towards  sin  as  involved  a 
resistance  or  denial  of  it  unto  death,  and  such  an 
attitude  towards  holiness  as  involved  an  attainment  of 
it  through  faith  unto  life.  The  death  and  resurrection 
of  Jesus  Christ  was  in  act  and  in  fact  humanity's 
death  to  sin  and  resurrection  to  God  and  holiness  and 
eternal  life.  Of  course  it  was  so  actually  to  Himself 
only  in  the  beginning,  but  thenceforth  it  was  poten- 
tially so  for  all.  How  it  is  potentially,  and  may  be 
actually  so  for  all,  is  a  part  of  the  Gospel  plan  of 
which  the  exposition  lies  before  us.  Up  to  the  present 
point  I  would  answer  to  any  question  of  how  we  are 
saved  by  the  death  or  the  blood  or  the  sacrifice  of 
Christ  simply  in  the  well-known  line  of  the  poet: 
In  His  death  our  sins  are  dead. 

Two  features  of  the  above  representation  require 
a  little  more  attention.  It  involves  the  truth  that 
Jesus  Himself  in  His  humanity  needed  the  salvation 
which  all  humanity  needs.  Salvation  for  Him,  as  for 
us  demanded  that  conflict  with  sin  and  conquest  of 
sin  which  was  preeminently  His  experience  and  His 
achievement.  Salvation  for  Him  as  for  us  was  impos- 
sible either  as  a  mere  fact  of  nature  or  as  an  attainment 


128     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

of  His  own  human  will.  The  power  of  God  unto 
salvation  through  faith  was  necessary  for  Him  as  for 
us,  and  that  power  manifested  itself  in  Him,  as  it  must 
in  us,  in  the  perfection  of  His  human  obedience  unto 
death,  even  the  death  of  the  cross.  Through  His  own 
blood  He  entered  into  the  hoHest,  having  found  eternal 
redemption.  That  is  to  say,  through  the  perfect  loss 
or  offering  up  of  Himself  He  eternally  found  or  attained 
His  true  Self. 

The  other  point  that  needed  attention  is  this :  Chris- 
tianity, it  may  be  said,  does  not  involve  in  fact  for  us 
such  an  experience  and  such  an  achievement  as  needs 
so  extreme  an  expression  as  is  indicated  by  the  death 
and  resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ.  Are  we  so  sure  of 
that.?  Of  course  a  thing  is  properly  defined  only  at 
its  highest  and  by  its  highest.  We  are  doing  that 
when  we  define  ourselves  by  Jesus  Christ.  In  His  death 
and  resurrection  we  are  defining  repentance  and  faith, 
the  right  human  attitude  towards  sin  and  holiness,  at 
their  limit,  carried  to  their  very  end.  But  sooner  or 
later,  if  we  are  to  be  saved  to  the  end,  have  not  we  all 
to  know  sin  to  the  very  end  and  holiness  to  the  very 
end,  —  sin  to  the  extreme  limit  of  experiencing  its 
death,  and  holiness  to  the  similar  limit  of  knowing  its 
life  ?  Salvation  in  the  highest  is  nothing  less  nor  lower 
than  the  actual  knowledge,  and  such  a  knowledge,  of 
sin  as  death,  a^d  holiness  as  life,  as  will  be  in  us  a  death 
to  sin  and  a  life  in  holiness. 

The  above  being  understood  as  the  ground  upon 
which  we  stand,  the  sure  basis  of  our  present  and 


Status  of  the  Christian  Believer       129 

future  status  with  God,  St.  Paul  describes  with  great 
clearness  what  ought  to  be  our  subjective  personal 
attitude  and  feeling  in  the  relation  in  which  it  places 
us  with  God:  Being  therefore  justified  by  faith,  let  us 
have  peace  with  God  through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ; 
through  whom  also  we  have  had  our  access  by  faith 
into  this  grace  wherein  we  stand;  and  let  us  rejoice  in 
hope  of  the  glory  of  God.  And  not  only  so,  but  let 
us  rejoice  also  in  our  tribulations.  The  first  immediate 
consequence  of  the  blessedness  made  ours  in  Jesus 
Christ  is  the  sense  of  present  peace.  It  is  necessary  to 
make  a  distinction  between  this  present  peace  and 
what  we  may  term  real  peace,  —  if  it  be  only  for  the 
purpose  of  taking  in  the  gift  of  God  in  its  entirety,  its 
end  as  well  as  its  beginning  and  progress.  We  can 
have  or  enjoy  real  peace  only  as  we  are  in  that  state 
or  condition  —  or,  as  Aristotle  so  insists,  in  that  not 
mere  state  or  condition  but  perfect  energizing  or  per- 
sonal activity  —  which  alone  is  the  condition  of  perfect 
peace,  or  of  which  alone  perfect  peace  is  the  accom- 
paniment and  the  expression.  To  one  who  is  ill  and 
about  to  die  it  would  bring  great  present  peace  to  know 
that  he  was  brought  into  possession  of  certain  cure 
and  so  of  assured  recovery  and  health.  But  the  real 
peace  to  the  sick  man  is  health  itself,  and  the  wonderful 
comfort  and  peace  brought  to  him  by  a  sure  faith  in 
it  and  a  certain  hope  of  it  is,  in  a  large  measure  at 
least,  only  proleptic  or  anticipatory.  In  a  large  meas- 
ure, but  not  wholly  so.  The  patient  may  find  in  his 
very  anticipation  and  hope  a  real  beginning  and  pro- 


130     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

gress  of  the  return  of  actual  health,  and  so  his  possession 
and  enjoyment  may  be  not  all  only  future;  and  the 
believer  not  only  looks  forward  in  faith  and  hope  to 
the  actual  fruition  of  God  and  holiness  and  life,  but 
has  an  ever  increasing  foretaste  of  them  now.  That, 
too,  is  real  peace  so  far  as  it  goes,  and  is  to  be  classed, 
in  theological  language,  rather  with  the  real  peace  of 
sanctification  and  final  glorification  than  with  the 
immediate  present  peace  of  justification.  When  St. 
Paul  says  that  we  are  saved  by  or  in  hope,  he  must 
mean  that  the  res  or  substance  of  our  salvation  is  still 
future,  although  our  present  assured  faith  in  it  and 
the  earnest  or  foretaste  of  it  which  we  already  enjoy 
are  enough  to  constitute  a  present  salvation,  to  justify 
us  in  saying  that  we  are  saved. 

But,  however  there  must  be  in  the  earliest  beginning 
of  at  least  the  consciousness  of  justification  something 
too  of  a  beginning  of  sanctification,  and  so  from  the 
start  a  mixing  of  the  real  peace  that  comes  so  slowly 
from  what  we  are  with  that  which  comes  so  imme- 
diately and  abundantly  from  the  discovery  of  what 
God  is  to  us,  yet  must  we  accept  and  appreciate  the 
distinction  between  them,  if  we  are  to  have  full  ex- 
perience of  what  the  Gospel  is  to  us  now  as  well  as 
what  it  has  in  store  for  us  in  the  end.  If  the  worst 
sinner  at  this  moment  in  the  world  could  be  brought  to 
an  immediate  spiritual  apprehension  of  the  full  meaning 
of  Christian  baptism,  what  it  is  that  is  made  all  ours 
by  that  divine  instrument,  assuredly  that  act  of  spiritual 
apprehension  on  his  part  would  be  the  first  tremendous 


Status  of  the  Christian  Believer        131 

step  in  the  process  of  real  righteousness,  or  sanctifica- 
tion,  on  his  actual  way  to  God.  But  of  real  righteous- 
ness, or  righteousness  of  his  own,  how  little  would  it 
be !  Of  real  reception  or  reception  by  actual  participa- 
tion there  could  indeed  be  but  a  drop  from  the  infinite 
ocean ;  but  on  the  other  hand,  by  the  reception  of  faith 
and  hope,  or  of  anticipatory  appropriation,  it  can  be 
all  his  in  a  moment.  He  may  in  one  ecstatic  sweep  of 
vision  behold  all  God  become  human,  his  own,  right- 
eousness and  life.  In  that  one  happy  moment,  or  in 
the  longer  happy  moment  of  his  whole  earthly  life  of 
faith  and  hope,  it  is  not  his  own  paltry  attainment  of 
personal  righteousness  or  life  with  which  God  credits 
him.  Rather  is  it  all  that  his  faith  takes  in  and  appro- 
priates to  itself  of  the  infinite  and  eternal  righteousness 
of  God  Himself.  All  of  Jesus  Christ,  who  is  God's 
promise  and  gift  to  us  of  His  own  divine  righteousness, 
—  all  of  Jesus  Christ,  who  is  consequently  also  our 
own  perfect  actual  participation  in  the  righteousness 
of  God  —  is  reckoned,  accounted,  or  imputed  to,  is  as 
it  were  put  to  the  credit  of,  the  worst  sinner  who  by  a 
true  faith  accepts  and  appropriates  Him  to  himself. 

The  place,  therefore,  which  we  are  enjoined  now  to 
have  and  enjoy  is  what  I  should  call  the  anticipatory 
peace  of  a  perfect  faith.  It  does  not  rest  upon  the 
existence  within  ourselves  of  all  the  conditions  necessary 
in  ourselves  to  a  real  peace.  It  rests  rather  upon  the 
assurance  that  all  those  conditions  have  been  realized 
in  Christ,  and  through  Him  are  to  be  realized  in  us. 
Meantime  we  do  not  wait  for  their  full  realization  in 


132     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

ourselves  to  have  free  access  to  and  be  at  peace  with 
God,  but  appropriate  to  ourselves,  as  He  imputes  to 
us,  in  advance,  the  freeness  and  fulness  of  all  that  He 
is  to  us  —  not  yet  in  ourselves,  but  —  in  Jesus  Christ. 
In  proportion  as  we  rest  the  terms  upon  which  we  are 
with  God  upon  real  grounds  to  be  found  in  ourselves, 
will  our  relations  with  Him,  our  peace,  be  weak  and 
low  and  fluctuating.  In  proportion  as  we  rest  it  upon 
what  our  faith  embraces  and  anticipates  of  the  infinite 
all  that  He  is  to  us  in  Christ  and  we  are  in  Him  in 
Christ,  will  our  peace  even  now  be  full  of  a  glory  that 
may  be  future  in  its  existence  in  us  but  is  very  present 
in  its  existence  for  us. 

Consequently  the  Apostle  links  very  closely  and 
indissolubly  with  the  possession  of  present  peace  the 
hope  or  assurance  of  future  glory:  Let  us  know  and 
enjoy  now  the  peace  of  being  on  terms  of  the  most 
unrestricted  access  to  and  fellowship  with  God,  but 
let  us  know  that  these  terms  could  not  exist  if  they 
did  not  mean  and  look  forward  and  lead  up  to  the 
final  and  full  glory  of  a  real  spiritual  oneness  with 
God,  no  longer  existing  only  in  Another  for  us,  but  in 
ourselves  in  The  Other.  The  expression  Glory  of  God, 
as  that  which  we  are  exhorted  to  rejoice  in  the  hope 
of,  can,  I  think  have  no  other  meaning  than  that  we 
give  it  in  the  old  saying  that  glory  is  only  sanctification 
completed,  as  sanctification  is  glory  begun.  It  is  full 
participation,  no  longer  only  in  the  divine  will  and  pur- 
pose and  promise  to  bless  us  with  Himself,  but  in  the 
fulness  and  completion  of  that  blessedness,  no  longer 


Status  of  the  Christian  Believer       133 

objectively  ours  in  Christ,  but  subjectively,  now,  all  our 
own  through  Christ  in  us. 

And  here  comes  in  the  third  point  of  the  Apostle's 
exhortation  to  us  as  necessary  to  the  practical  realiza- 
tion of  our  relation  to  God  in  Christ.  We  are  to  be  as 
much  at  peace  with  God  now  as  though  we  actually 
fulfilled  in  ourselves  all  the  real  conditions  upon  which 
that  peace  depends  and  in  which  it  consists.  We  may 
rightly  be  so,  because  in  God's  Word,  which  is  Christ, 
we  may  rejoice  in  the  certain  hope  that  we  shall  be  in 
ourselves  all  that  now  we  are  only  in  Him.  But  now 
what  shall  we  say  as  to  the  passage  or  transition  from 
the  relation  to  God  in  Christ  of  faith  only  to  that  of 
real  participation  and  identity  ?  The  one  exists  only 
that  it  may  pass  over  into  the  other;  how  is  that  passage 
to  be  effected  or  accomplished  ?  How  is  Christ  for  us 
to  become  Christ  in  us,  or  the  divine  righteousness 
imputed  to  transmute  itself  into  the  same  righteousness 
imparted?  How,  in  a  word,  is  our  present  peace  to 
attain  to  all  the  reality  of  future  glory  ? 

Let  me  pause  for  a  moment  to  remark  that  there 
need  be,  and  should  be,  nothing  of  mere  other-worldli- 
ness  in  what  we  are  now  talking  about.  I  am  not 
thinking  of  any  other  place  or  condition  or  outward 
circumstances  of  life  or  activity  than  those  we  know. 
Here  or  elsewhere  life  with  its  means  or  ends  is  prac- 
tically the  same.  The  only  other-world  that  I  am 
capable  of  really  thinking  about  is  the  world  of  that 
other  thing  or  other  self  that,  wherever  I  am,  it  can 
but  be  my  sole  end  or  aim  to  become,  if  I  am  to  be 


134     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

saved  from  what  I  am.  My  glory  or  my  heaven  is 
nothing  to  me  that  I  do  not  supremely  want  here  and 
now.  And  I  know  not,  and  do  not  think  about,  any 
way  or  means  of  attaining  or  securing  them  other  than 
those  that  lie  before  me.  All  that  I  propose  to  myself 
in  the  furthest  future  is  only  the  consummation  and 
fruition  of  all  that  is  worth  striving  or  living  for  here, 
or  anywhere  else. 

The  great  value  of  what  St.  Paul  has  now  to  tell  us 
may  be  expressed  in  this  truth:  that  the  only  way  from 
faith  to  fruition,  from  what  we  believe  in  and  aim  at 
to  what  we  shall  attain  and  be,  from  life  in  Christ  for 
us  to  the  hf e  of  Christ  in  us,  is  the  way  of  suffering. 
The  many  sons  of  God  can  be  brought  unto  glory 
only  as  the  One  Son,  the  Author  and  Captain  of  their 
salvation,  was  brought  —  by  being  made  perfect 
through  sufferings.  This  is,  of  course,  the  tritest 
common  place  of  Christianity,  but  there  is  that  in 
St.  Paul's  treatment  of  it  here  which  looks  more  deeply 
than  we  are  wont  to  see  into  the  reason  or  philosophy 
of  the  matter.  Even  Christians  are  in  the  habit  of 
speaking  of  the  existence  of  trial  and  suffering  and  of 
evil  in  general  as  a  mystery  of  which  we  can  have  no 
understanding  on  the  whole,  although  in  part  we  may 
recognize  the  uses  to  which  it  is  actually  put  in  the 
discipline  of  life.  But  St.  Paul's  philosophy  is  not 
merely,  I  think,  that,  evil  existing,  we  know  not  why 
or  how,  it  is  turned  to  account,  overruled  as  we  say, 
and  made  a  means  of  good  to  us,  by  the  power  greater 
than  itself.     Rather  is  it  that,  in  the  very  nature  of  it, 


Status  of  the  Christian  Believer       135 

all  real  good,  natural  or  spiritual,  is  won  against,  is  a 
victory  over,  an  opposite  ill.  Pleasure,  if  it  is  not 
only  a  survival  of  or  relief  from  pain,  is  at  least  de- 
veloped in  consciousness  by  contrast  with  and  conquest 
of  it.  Virtue  or  true  manhood  is  every  inch  of  it  not 
merely  won  by  but  the  very  product  or  fruit  of  conflict 
with  and  conquest  of  its  opposite.  The  holiness  of 
Jesus  Christ  Himself  was  as  much  negatively  the 
denial  and  annulment  of  its  opposite,  sin,  as  it  was 
the  affirmation  and  establishment  of  itself  through  a 
positive  union  with  the  Spirit  and  will  and  life  of  God. 
We  could  not,  however  we  might  try,  conceive  of  a 
spiritual,  personal  creation  developed  otherwise  than 
through  conditions  practically  identical  with  those  to 
which  we  take  the  chief  exception  in  the  world  as  it  is. 
It  seems  to  me,  therefore,  that  St.  Paul  in  the  language 
we  are  about  to  consider  selects  the  very  best  terms  in 
which  to  express  the  philosophy  of  pain,  temptation, 
and  trial,  not  merely  as  existing  and  as  what  we  have 
to  live  in  spite  of,  but  as  necessary  to  us  and  what  we 
have  to  live  by  means  of.  It  is  a  vindication  or  justi- 
fication of  the  fact  that  the  divinest  as  well  as  most 
human  act,  the  most  divinely  human  and  humanly 
divine  act,  actual  or  possible  in  the  history  of  our 
universe,  had  to  be  enacted  and  expressed  in  terms  of 
the  most  inconceivable  humiliation,  trial,  and  suffering. 
It  is  an  interpretation  of  the  facts  and  circumstances 
of  our  own  existence,  in  which  all  the  most  extreme 
contrasts  and  contradictions  meet  and  contend,  and 
for  which  there  is  no  possible  explanation  but  that  it 


136     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

is  the  scene  and  the  condition  necessary  not  only  for 
the  testing  or  proving  but  for  the  determining  and 
developing  of  personal  character  and  life. 

If,  says  St.  Paul,  in  the  possession  of  our  present 
peace  we  rejoice  in  the  hope  of  our  future  glory,  then 
must  we  rejoice  likewise  in  the  necessary  steps  or  means 
by  which  that  glory  is  to  be  achieved,  in  all  the  passive 
and  active  experiences  through  which  it  is  to  be  won. 
It  is  not  that  the  glory  of  not  only  believing  but  being 
what  Christ  is  is  earned  by  endurances  and  acts  which 
in  themselves  may  be  diflPerent  from  and  independent 
of  the  end  attained  by  them,  but  that  every  trial  en- 
dured and  act  performed  in  and  for  Christ  enters 
constituently  into  and  forms  a  part  of  the  glory  that  is 
His  and  that  thus  becomes  ours.  Christ  already  in  us 
by  faith  the  hope  of  glory  becomes  Christ  in  us  in  fact 
the  substance  and  reality  of  glory,  only  in  the  enduring 
with  His  power  of  survival  and  in  the  acting  with  His 
assurance  and  certainty  of  achievement  and  attainment. 
So,  says  St.  Paul,  If  we  rejoice  in  our  glory  as  it  mani- 
fested itself  in  Christ,  in  what  He  endured  and  how 
He  endured,  in  what  He  did  and  how  He  acted,  let  us 
rejoice  in  enduring  the  same  things  in  the  same  way, 
and  in  accomplishing  the  same  things  in  and  with  the 
self-same  grace  and  power.  That  was  the  glory  of 
Christ  and  that  is  the  only  sharing  in  His  glory  which 
we  have  warrant  for  rejoicing  in  the  hope  of.  Let  us 
rejoice  in  our  tribulations  then,  first,  because  tribula- 
tion worketh,  not  merely  a  more  passive  patience,  but 
a  more  active  endurance.     The  word  may  be  made  to 


Status  of  the  Christian  Believer        137 

include  every  high  and  holy  reaction  on  our  part 
against  every  possible  assault  made  upon  us  from 
without;  such  an  attitude  towards,  such  a  resistance  to, 
such  a  survival  of,  whatever  may  assail  us,  as  will  in 
itself  be  a  victory  over  every  form  of  evil  that  the 
world  can  oppose  to  us.  All  such  opposition  to  and 
power  over  evil  can  be  nothing  else  than  dependence 
in  and  the  power  of  the  opposite  and  opposing  good. 
There  is  no  hatred  of  the  devil  but  the  love  of  God, 
and  there  is  no  power  over  evil  but  the  power  of  good. 
The  next  term  expresses  yet  more  clearly  the  reflex 
effect  in  and  upon  ourselves  of  the  right  withstanding 
of  the  evil  without  ourselves.  The  right  reaction  upon 
our  environment  will  produce  within  ourselves  a  qual- 
ity, a  settled  character,  an  acquired  nature,  which  can 
scarcely  be  expressed  by  any  single  word  at  our  com- 
mand. Probation  will  not  do,  because  it  designates 
rather  the  process  by  which  the  result  is  reached  than 
the  result  itself  of  the  process.  Indeed  it  does  not 
express  so  much.  The  process  of  our  sanctifying,  of 
our  actual  righteousing,  and  final  glorifying,  is  not  one 
of  mere  testing  or  proving  or  trying,  but  one  of  true 
determining  or  making.  It  is  the  only  possible  process 
in  and  by  which  we  may  be  determined  in  and  through 
our  own  self-determination  and  be  made  by  our  own 
becoming.  At  the  same  time  we  can  be  determined 
or  determine  ourselves  only  in  reaction  with  our  actual 
environment,  and  the  result  of  a  right  reaction  is  a 
right  quahty,  character,  or  acquired  nature  of  our  own. 
How  may  we  better  designate  or  describe  that  than  as 


138     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

a  quality  of  triedness,  provedness,  and  appro vedness; 
the  quality  of  having  stood  and  withstood  all,  of  having 
met  all  the  conditions,  tests,  and  trials  of  life,  and  of 
having  so  met  them  as  to  have  rightly  reacted  with  or 
upon  them,  that  is,  to  have  been  acted  upon  and 
acted  as  we  ought.  This  is  something  of  the  etymolog- 
ical meaning  and  actual  force  of  the  word  used  here 
and  generally  to  describe  the  true  and  right  effect  upon 
and  in  us  of  the  divine  discipline  of  life. 

Now,  says  St.  Paul,  when  we  have  thus  endured, 
and  been  thus  disciplined  and  proved,  or  in  the  process 
of  being  thus  disciplined  and  proved,  hope  is  wrought 
in  us.  Faith  is  of  something  in  God,  hope  is  of  some- 
thing in  ourselves.  We  have  faith  in  what  God  is  to 
us  and  in  us,  we  have  hope  in  what  we  shall  become 
in  God.  It  is  only  in  the  stress  and  trial  of  our  own 
actual  becoming,  it  is  only  as  after  experience  of  our 
own  weakness  we  have  experienced  the  power  of  God 
in  us  to  become,  that  we  begin  really  to  know  what 
hope  is.  When  we  have  tested  our  resources  and  found 
them  sufficient  for  us,  when  we  have  again  and  again 
proved  our  armour  in  actual  battle  and  by  repeated 
victory,  above  all  when  we  have  acquired  something 
of  the  facihty  of  use  and  the  habit  of  victory,  then  do 
we  know  as  we  cannot  know  prior  to  experience  the 
joy  and  assurance  of  a  reasonable,  religious,  and  holy 
hope.  And  this  hope  maketh  not  ashamed;  it  cannot 
be  defeated  or  disappointed.  Why?  Not  merely 
because  what  God  has  promised  He  is  able  as  well 
as  faithful  and  just  to  perform,  but  because  we  have 


Status  of  the  Christian  Believer       139 

placed  our  hope  in  that  which  in  itself  is  as  indestructible 
as  it  is  satisfying  and  sufficient,  the  one  only  thing  in 
which  we  shall  not  come  to  permanent  spiritual  and 
moral  as  well  as  intellectual  confusion. 

More  specifically,  the  Apostle  says,  Hope  maketh 
not  ashamed  because  the  love  of  God  is  shed  abroad 
in  our  hearts  through  the  Holy  Ghost  which  is  given 
unto  us.  This  means  primarily,  of  course,  the  love  of 
God  Himself  to  us  of  which  experience  makes  us 
constantly  more  and  more  both  sensible  and  receptive. 
But,  if  this  love  of  God  is  shed  abroad  in  our  hearts 
by  the  Holy  Ghost  not  only  imparting  but  imparted, 
we  may  be  sure  that  it  will  be  in  us  a  love  of  God  of 
which  we  shall  be  the  subjects  as  well  as  the  objects, 
a  love  with  which  we  shall  ourselves  love  as  well  as 
be  loved.  For  after  all  we  are  really  blessed  and  saved 
not  so  much  in  that  which  we  have  freely  received  as 
in  that  which  we  as  freely  give.  God  for  us  and  to  us 
is  only  in  faith  our  salvation;  He  is  in  fact  our  salvation 
only  as  God  in  us. 


XI 

SAINT   PAUL'S  TERMINOLOGY 


Through  whom  also  we  have  had  our  access  by  faith  into  this 
grace  wherein  we  stand.  —  Romans  V.  2. 

For  through  Him  we  both  have  our  access  in  one  Spirit  unto  the 
Father.  —  Ephesians  II.  18. 

In  whom  we  have  boldness  and  access  in  confidence  through  our 
faith  in  Him.  —  Ephesians  HI.  12. 

Because  Christ  also  suffered  for  sins  once,  the  righteous  for  the 
unrighteous,  that  He  might  bring  us  to  God;  being  put  to  death  in 
the  flesh,  but  quickened  in  the  spirit.  Forasmuch  then  as  Christ 
suffered  in  the  flesh,  arm  ye  yourselves  also  with  the  same  mind;  for 
he  that  hath  suffered  in  the  flesh  hath  ceased  from  sin;  that  ye  no 
longer  should  live  in  the  flesh  to  the  lusts  of  men,  but  to  the  will  of 
God.  —  1  Peter  HI.  18,  and  4,  1,  2. 

God  commendeth  His  own  love  toward  us,  in  that,  while  we  were 
yet  sinners,  Christ  died  for  us.  Much  more  then,  being  now  justi- 
fied by  His  blood,  shall  we  be  saved  from  the  wrath  of  God  through 
Him.  For  if,  while  we  were  enemies,  we  were  reconciled  to  God 
through  the  death  of  His  Son,  much  more,  being  reconciled,  shall  we 
be  saved  by  His  fife.  —  Romans  V.  8,  10. 


XI 


SAINT  PAUL'S  TERMINOLOGY 

I  WISH  in  this  chapter  to  illustrate  in  some  typical 
instances  St.  Paul's  understanding  and  use  of  words, 
and  especially  of  the  words  most  characteristic  of  and 
associated  with  his  system  of  thought.  I  will  select 
several  in  the  passage  immediately  before  us  in  the 
order  of  his  own  argument. 

He  speaks  of  our  access  to  God  through  Jesus  Christ : 
Through  whom  we  have  had  our  access  by  faith  into 
this  grace  wherein  we  stand.  He  says  elsewhere,  too. 
Through  Him  we  both  (Jew  and  Gentile)  have  our 
access  in  one  Spirit  unto  the  Father.  And  again.  In 
whom  we  have  boldness  and  access  in  confidence 
through  our  faith  in  Him.  The  First  Epistle  of  St. 
Peter  is  very  Pauline  in  its  essential  positions,  and 
there  is  one  passage  in  it  which  I  think  throws  light 
upon  the  meaning  of  this  access.  The  word  means 
literally  a  bringing  to  :  Christ  suffered  for  sin,  the 
righteous  for  the  unrighteous,  that  He  might  bring  us 
to  God.  Now  let  us  quite  independently  ask  ourselves 
what  this  bringing  us  to  God  must  mean.  For  after 
all  the  thing  has  to  be  interpreted  by  itself  and  nothing 

145 


144     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

else,  or  by  anything  else  only  as  it  helps  us  to  under- 
stand itself.  It  certainly  is  not  only  a  local  bringing, 
and  on  the  other  extreme  it  cannot  ultimately  mean 
anything  short  of  the  most  real  spiritual  or  personal 
bringing.  In  fact,  distance  from  God  is  both  consti- 
tuted and  measured  by  sin,  and  conversely  approach 
to  Him  by  holiness.  It  is  our  sin  that  separates  us 
from  Him  and  our  holiness  that  approximates  us  to 
Him.  We  are  approximated  by  becoming  assimilated. 
And  Jesus  Christ  brought  us  to  God,  or  reconciled  us 
to  God,  or  at-one-d  us  with  God,  in  the  first  instance, 
by  actually  bringing  us  —  our  nature,  our  life,  our 
selves,  in  His  person  —  into  personal  oneness  with 
God,  and  so  aboHshing  the  enmity  and  annihilating 
the  distance  between  us.  How  did  He  do  this?  By 
the  personal  act  of  His  own  human  holiness.  In  that 
act  He,  in  Himself  first,  aboHshed  sin  in  humanity, 
and  created  and  established  holiness.  He  was  not,  as 
I  have  frequently  said,  sinless  or  holy  just  so,  by  neces- 
sary or  simple  fact  of  nature.  His  hoHness  was  the  one 
unbroken  act  and  achievement  of  His  life,  the  act  by 
which  atonement,  redemption,  and  resurrection,  all  in 
one,  were  accomplished  in  Him  for  us,  and  by  us  in 
Him.  Neither  did  He  accomplish  holiness  —  humanly, 
or  in  the  nature  common  to  Him  and  us  —  of  or  by 
Himself,  but  in  the  way  in  which  alone  human  holiness 
is  possible,  by  union  through  faith  of  God  with  Himself 
and  of  Himself  with  God;  and  so  He  opened  and 
established  a  way  of  holiness  not  for  Himself  alone 
but  for  all  in  Him.     For  we  are  partakers  with  Him  if 


Saint  PauVs  Terminology  145 

we  hold  fast  the  beginning  of  our  confidence  (in  Him) 
steadfast  unto  the  end. 

More  definitely,  according  to  St.  Peter,  we  were 
brought  to  God  in  Christ  by  the  act  which  he  describes 
as  a  being  put  to  death  in  the  flesh  and  being  quickened 
in  the  spirit.  That  death  in  the  flesh  and  life  in  the 
spirit  is,  as  we  shall  more  and  more  see,  St.  Paul's 
formula  for  both  what  was  accomplished  in  our  Lord 
and  is  to  be  accomplished  in  us  if  we  are  to  know  in 
Him  the  full  reality  of  our  salvation.  Whether  St. 
Peter  here  uses  the  words  in  the  full  sense  of  St.  Paul 
may  be  a  question.  He  certainly  seems  to  include  that 
sense  when,  a  little  farther  on,  he  says :  Forasmuch  then 
as  Christ  suffered  in  the  flesh,  arm  ye  also  yourselves 
with  the  same  mind;  for  he  that  hath  suffered  in  the 
flesh  hath  ceased  from  sin;  that  ye  no  longer  should 
live  the  rest  of  your  time  in  the  flesh  to  the  lusts  of 
men,  but  to  the  will  of  God.  We  best,  I  repeat  again 
and  again,  understand  our  Lord's  death  and  resur- 
rection when  we  interpret  it  in  terms  of  what  needs  to 
take  place  in  ourselves  in  the  completing  and  com- 
pleteness of  our  stand  and  attitude  against  sin  and  for 
God  and  His  hoHness  and  righteousness. 

When  I  say  that  our  bringing  to  God  by  and  in 
Jesus  Christ  cannot  stop  short  of  the  fulness  of  its 
meaning,  and  that  that  fulness  of  meaning  can  be 
nothing  less  than  our  complete  approximation  to  God 
by  personal  assimilation  with  Him,  I  am  so  far  from 
affirming  that  the  word  implies  or  expresses  all  this  in 
the  three  passages  quoted  from  St.  Paul  himself,  that 


146     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

the  fact  that  it  does  not  do  so  is  just  what  I  wish  to 
call  attention  to,  as  not  only  characteristic  of  him  but 
actually  constituting  the  prominent  point  of  his  Gospel. 
Our  access  to  God  in  the  sense  in  which  he  means  it  is 
immediate  and  complete,  whereas  the  real  access  de- 
scribed above,  our  real  bringing  to  God,  cannot  but  be 
in  its  very  nature  processive  and  progressive  and 
always  in  the  future.  The  explanation  of  this  feature 
is  the  key  to  St.  Paul's  spiritual  position.  The  inter- 
pretation which  I  would  urge  as  best  reconciling  all 
difficulties  is  as  follows: 

There  is  no  discrepancy  in  the  meaning  of  the  thing 
itself  under  discussion;  the  differences  are  all  in  our 
changing  relations  to  the  thing.  The  thing  itself,  our 
salvation,  can  have  but  one  meaning;  it  is  nothing  more 
nor  less  nor  other  than  oneness  with  God,  freedom 
from  sin,  resurrection  from  death.  And  all  these  can 
be  nowhere  else  for  us  than  in  ourselves;  nothing  else 
than  these  in  all  their  actuality  in  ourselves  will  be 
re  ipsa  our  salvation,  that  which  God  proposes  to  us 
as  the  end  of  the  Gospel.  We  are  very  far  from  seeing 
these  realized  actually  in  their  totality  in  any  one  of 
ourselves;  and  yet  we  know  perfectly  that  that  is  what 
our  salvation  means  with  God  and  cannot  but  mean 
for,  as  it  ought  to  mean  with,  us.  But,  if  we  do  not 
see  ourselves  as  yet  so  exalted,  we  do  see  One  crowned 
and  glorified,  and  in  that  One  we  are  bidden  of  God  to 
see  ourselves.  For  He  is  God's  promise  and  fulfilment 
and  revelation  to  us  of  us  all.  The  end  of  God's 
Gospel  to  us  all  and  every  one  is  all  that  Jesus  Christ 


Saint  Paul's  Terminology  147 

Himself  is  in  the  actualized  completeness  of  our  common 
humanity.  And  He  is  to  us  the  Way  as  well  as  the 
Truth  and  the  Life.  He  is  the  revelation  to  us  not 
only  of  the  end  but  of  the  process  or  means  of  our 
salvation.  He  was  perfected  as  we  need  to  be  per- 
fected, and  we  can  be  perfected  only  as  He  was,  — 
through  the  action  upon  us  of  the  world  as  it  is  and 
the  manner  and  character  of  our  own  reaction  with 
and  upon  and  against  it. 

Now  it  was  St.  Paul's  pecuHar  mission  and  function 
to  represent  the  obligations  and  claims  of  faith.  The 
essence  of  spiritual  action  is  to  know  and  believe  God. 
When  our  Lord  said,  Man  shall  not  live  by  bread 
alone,  but  by  every  word  of  God  shall  man  live,  —  He 
meant,  Man  shall  not  live  by  sense  alone,  by  nature 
alone,  or  himself  alone,  but  by  Him  of  whom  all  these 
and  all  else  are  but  signs  and  outward  expressions. 
Jesus  Christ  Himself  differed  from  all  others  and  all 
things  else  in  that  He  alone  was  the  direct,  immediate 
Word  Itself  or  Personal  manifestation  and  expression 
of  God.  To  beheve  Him  was  in  a  pecuhar  and  abso- 
lute sense  to  beheve  God.  As  St.  John  expressed  it. 
Not  to  believe  Him  was  directly  and  absolutely  to 
make  God  a  liar.  Now  with  St.  Paul  as  much  as  with 
St.  John,  Jesus  Christ  was  at  once  God's  word  and 
reality  of  ourselves,  our  salvation,  our  eternal  life. 
What  God  so  says  —  to  faith  is.  A  true  and  right 
faith  will  speak  of  Christ  in  terms  of  ourselves,  and  of 
ourselves  in  terms  of  Christ.  He  is  we  and  we  are 
He  in  the  meaning  and  sight  of  God,  and  what  we  are 


148     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

in  the  sight  of  God  we  ought  to  be  in  the  eye  of  faith; 
for  what  is  faith  but  a  taking  God  at  His  word,  and 
seeing  and  meaning  as  He  sees  and  means  ? 

Of  course,  then,  God  treats  us  as  being  all  that  Christ 
is  for  us  and  to  us  and  is  to  be  in  us.  And  taking 
ourselves  as  God  takes  us,  our  free  and  filial  access  to 
Him  does  not  wait  until  God  shall  make  us,  but  is 
deeply  content  to  come  to  Him  for  what  He  will  take 
us,  in  Christ  Jesus.  It  is  this  immediate  access,  this 
present  peace  with  God,  this  resting  in  and  upon 
Jesus  Christ  alone  as  our  ground  of  acceptance  and 
of  loving  filial  union  and  communion  with  God,  that 
constitutes  what  St.  Paul  describes  as  this  state  of 
grace  in  which  we  stand. 

Observe,  then,  what  cannot  be  avoided,  this  duality 
of  point  of  view  springing  out  of  our  differences  of 
relation  to  one  and  the  same  thing.  When  God  or 
our  own  faith  represents  us  as  in  Christ,  it  is  not  only 
Christ's  righteousness  that  is  reckoned  or  accounted 
or  imputed  to  us,  but  everything  else  that  is  Christ's 
in  His  humanity.  We  are  dead  with  Him,  and  risen, 
ascended,  glorified,  completed.  Not  only  so,  but  the 
one  term  which  theology  reserves  to  express  not  what 
we  are  in  completion  in  Christ,  but  what  we  are  in 
process  and  in  present  incompleteness,  is  itself  turned 
against  that  use  and  falls  in  with  the  other  terms,  in 
the  opposite  ranks.  Theology  says  that  to  righteous  or 
justify  must  be  used  in  tenses  of  completed  action,  but 
to  sanctify  in  those  of  incomplete  or  continuing  action. 
We  were,  or  have  been,  or  are,  justified;  but  we  are 


Saint  PauVs  Terminology  149 

being,  or  are  in  process  of  becoming,  sanctified.  But 
how  does  St.  Paul  look  at  it  ?  He  describes  the  Church 
at  Corinth  —  not  at  that  time  a  specially  advanced 
body  in  actual  spiritual  attainment  —  as  those  who 
had  been  and  were  sanctified  in  Christ  Jesus  and  so 
were  called  to  be  or  to  become  holy.  That  is  to  say, 
they  were  called  or  treated  as  being  holy  in  Christ 
Jesus,  and  at  the  same  time  were  recognized  as  not 
being  and  called  to  become  holy  in  themselves.  This 
illustrates  what  I  have  said  about  its  being  a  matter 
not  of  difference  in  the  thing  but  only  of  our  relation 
to  the  thing.  When  our  relation  to  Christ  is  real  and 
complete  we  shall  be  holy;  as  our  relation  to  Christ  is 
real  but  not  complete,  we  are  becoming  holy  or  are 
being  sanctified;  as  our  relation  to  Christ  is  viewed  as 
one  of  faith  only,  and  apart  as  yet  from  any  actual 
sanctification  through  Him,  His  holiness,  as  His  right- 
eousness and  everything  else  that  is  humanly  His,  is 
accounted  or  reckoned  or  treated  as  ours  and  conse- 
quently spoken  of  as  being  completed.  The  more 
modem  complete  distinction  of  justification  and  sanc- 
tification is  therefore  not  as  definitely  scriptural  as 
may  be  thought.  At  the  same  time  it  is  useful  if  not 
necessary,  and  only  needs  to  be  guarded  and  under- 
stood. The  different  points  of  view  represented  by 
the  terms  cannot  but  be  kept  in  mind,  and  as  a  matter 
of  fact  run  all  the  way  through  the  argument  imme- 
diately before  us. 

The  love  of  God  which  is  the  original  source  and 
cause  of  all  our  salvation  or  blessedness,  as  it  constitutes 


150     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

our  present  peace  with  God,  so  may  be  relied  upon  for 
our  hope  of  future  glory.  The  love  of  God  antedates 
not  only,  of  course,  any  response  to  it,  but  any  desert 
or  desire  of  it  on  our  part.  If  when  we  were  ungodly 
and  unrighteous,  helpless  subjects  and  slaves  of  our 
sins,  God  so  loved  us  as,  altogether  of  Himself,  for  the 
praise  of  the  glory  of  His  own  grace,  apart  from  any 
merit  or  answer  or  anticipation  of  love  on  our  part  — 
nay,  while  we  were  yet  enemies  to  Him  —  if  then  and 
thus  God  so  loved  us  as,  at  such  a  price  or  cost,  to 
provide  for  us  so  great  a  salvation;  if  upon  the  ground 
of  the  salvation  thus  provided,  and  our  acceptance  of 
it  with  a  faith  answering  to  His  grace.  He  receives  us 
into  a  state  or  status  of  complete  filial  relationship 
with  Himself  and  takes  no  account  of  anything  within 
us  save  our  need  and  our  will  to  be  saved,  —  if  all  this 
he  so,  can  or  will  He  fail  us  in  what  remains,  the  task 
and  attainment  of  our  actual  salvation  ?  The  distinc- 
tion is  kept  up  between  our  salvation  in  faith  and  our 
salvation  in  fact,  and  the  argument  is  that  if  God  so 
gave  Christ  objectively  to  our  faith  He  may  be  trusted 
to  give  Him  subjectively  in  our  Hves.  Whether  objec- 
tively, however,  to  our  faith  or  subjectively  in  our 
lives,  Christ  is  always  one  and  the  same  thing  —  our 
own  divine  hoKness,  righteousness,  life.  We  do  not 
believe  in  Him  at  all  if  we  do  not  believe  in  Him  as 
all  these  not  only  for  us  but  in  us.  Justification  and 
sanctification  are  not  two  things  in  themselves,  they  are 
one  and  the  same  thing  viewed  in  different  relations 
on  our  part  to  it.     The  thing  is  Jesus  Christ  our 


Saint  Paul's  Terminology  151 

Righteousness,  or  God  our  Righteousness  in  the  person 
of  Jesus  Christ.  The  different  relations  to  it  on  our 
part  are,  (l)  that  righteousness  apprehended  and 
appropriated  to  ourselves  by  faith,  in  all  its  complete- 
ness; upon  which  God  accepts  and  treats  us  as  actually 
possessing  it;  this  is  what  is  meant  by  our  justification, 
or  our  status  of  present  peace  and  fellowship  with  God; 
and  (2)  that  righteousness,  which  is  Jesus  Christ  Him- 
self, through  the  constant  association  and  participation 
of  faith  with  Him,  gradually  but  actually  imparting 
Himself  to  us  so  as  to  become  to  us  not  only  a  right- 
eousness in  which  we  believe  but  one  which  at  least 
we  begin  to  possess ;  this  is  what  in  process  or  progress 
we  call  our  sanctification,  and  when  it  is  completed  it 
will  be  our  glory  or  glorification. 

Seeing,  says  St.  Paul,  that  prior  to  anything  whatever 
on  our  part  fro,  and  even  despite  everything  on  our 
part  contray  God  has  done  for  us  all  that  was  involved 
in  the  death  of  Jesus  Christ,  how  much  more  having 
been  thus  justified  in  His  blood  shall  we  be  saved 
through  Him  from  wrath.?  Or,  to  put  it  in  another 
way,  If  when  we  were  enemies  we  were  reconciled  to 
God  by  the  death  of  His  Son,  how  much  more  having 
been  thus  reconciled  shall  we  be  saved  in  His  life? 
In  these  two  ways  of  stating  it  we  have,  first,  the  object- 
tive  relation  to  Christ  and  consequent  status  with  God 
expressed  in  the  terms  justified  and  reconciled.  That 
means  that  God  accepts  Christ  as  our  righteousness 
or  as  our  reconciliation  or  at-one-ment  with  Himself, 
and  consequently  accepts  us  in  the  person  of  Christ 


152     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

as  at  one  with  Him  and  as  righteous.  In  this  God 
accepts  Christ  as  what  He  actually  and  literally  is, 
humanity  actually  at  one  with  Himself  and  actually 
righteous;  and  He  accepts  us  as  in  faith  and  hope 
wholly  at  one  with  Him  and  become  righteous,  because 
through  that  faith  and  hope  we  are  potentially  and 
shall  be  actually  so. 

We  are  justified  in  the  blood  of  Christ,  or  reconciled 
through  His  death;  the  phrases  are  identical  in  meaning. 
We  shall  have  much  more  to  say  about  our  Lord's 
death  or  blood;  it  is  enough  to  say  that  the  meaning 
here  is  that  in  Christ's  death  our  sins  are  dead.  The 
death  He  died  was  a  death  to  sin,  and  the  life  He  lives 
is  a  life  to  God.  It  could  not  be  said  that  in  His 
death  our  sins  are  dead,  if  there  were  not  sufiicient 
grounds  for  our  reckoning  ourselves  too  as  dead  to 
sin  in  His  death  and  as  alive  to  God  in  His  life.  Neither 
could  we  in  faith  so  account  ourselves  if  in  fact  there 
were  not  a  way  in  which  His  death  may  actually 
become  our  death  and  His  Hfe  our  life.  This  way  we 
have  to  learn  more  of  as  we  proceed. 

Our  subjective  relation  to  Christ,  in  the  second  place, 
or  the  consequence  within  ourselves  of  our  objective 
relation  to  Him,  is,  in  St.  Paul's  two  ways  of  stating  it, 
the  being  saved  through  Him  from  wrath,  or  the  being 
saved  in  His  life.  These  two  phrases  again  are  synony- 
mous or  equivalent.  To  be  saved  from  wrath  means 
with  St.  Paul,  as  I  hope  more  and  more  clearly  to  show, 
to  be  saved  from  what  may  as  truly  be  described  as 
the  natural  consequences  of  sin  as  they  are,  from  the 


Saint  Paul's  Terminology  153 

spiritual  and  moral  point  of  view,  represented  by  him 
as  the  judicial  or  penal  consequences  of  sin.  To  say 
that  the  wages  of  sin  is  death,  or  that  the  soul  that 
sinneth  it  shall  die,  or  to  speak  of  the  necessary  sequence 
of  sin  and  death,  as  cause  and  consequence,  as  a  law 
—  may  be  equally  truly  the  language  of  scientific  fact 
and  the  expression  of  divine  action.  Of  course  some- 
thing depends  upon  what  we  shall  see  to  be  St.  Paul's 
meaning  of  death.  Read  again  the  latter  half  of  the 
first  chapter  of  this  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  to  see  that 
the  penalty  of  sin  is  sin  itself;  its  curse  is  that  it  breeds 
more  and  more  of  itself,  and  the  death  and  hell  to 
which  it  is  condemned  are  nothing  but  itself  multiplied 
and  left  to  itself.  Consequently  I  say  that  to  be  saved 
from  wrath  is  identical  with  being  saved  in  Christ's 
life;  it  is  to  be  saved  from  the  death  which  sin  is  in 
itself,  in  the  life  which  as  death  to  sin  is  the  death  of 
death  itself  also. 


XII 

THE   FIRST  AND   THE   LAST 
ADAM 


As  through  one  man  sin  entered  into  the  world,  and  death  through 
sin;  and  so  death  passed  unto  all  men,  for  that  all  sinned:  —  for  until 
the  law  sin  was  in  the  world:  but  sin  is  not  imputed  where  there  is 
no  law.  Nevertheless  death  reigned  from  Adam  until  Moses,  even 
over  them  that  had  not  sinned  after  the  likeness  of  Adam's  trans- 
gression who  is  a  figure  of  Him  that  was  to  come. 

So  then  as  through  one  trespass  the  Judgment  came  unto  all  men 
to  condemnation;  even  so  through  one  act  of  righteousness  the  free 
gift  came  unto  all  men  to  justification  of  life.  For  as  through  the 
one  man's  disobedience  the  many  were  made  sinners,  even  so  through 
the  obedience  of  the  one  shall  the  many  be  made  righteous.  And 
the  law  came  in  beside,  that  the  trespass  might  abound;  but  where 
sin  abounded,  grace  did  abound  more  exceedingly:  that,  as  sin 
reigned  in  death,  even  so  might  grace  reign  through  righteousness 
imto  eternal  life  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord.  —  Romans  V.  12-14 
and  18-21. 


xn 


THE   FIRST  AND   THE   LAST  ADAM 

It  is  not  essential  to  St.  Paul's  truth  or  argument 
what  he  thought  or  what  we  may  think  of  his  illustra- 
tions as  historical  facts.  All  we  want  of  them  is  what 
of  pertinence  or  of  help  there  may  be  in  them  as  illus- 
trations. His  object  is  not  to  prove  them,  but  some- 
thing by  means  of  them.  It  is  the  something  that 
concerns  us,  and  not  the  symbol  or  parable  or  example 
used  to  help  us  understand  it.  We  ourselves  within 
a  generation  have  undergone  revolutions  in  our  tradi- 
tional beliefs  of  historical  truth  and  natural  fact  which 
we  once  thought  part  of  our  religious  faith,  and  have 
made  for  ourselves  the  oft-repeated  discovery  that  the 
removal  of  the  things  that  are  shaken  does  not  involve 
the  change  of  those  that  may  not  be  shaken.  It  is 
impossible  but  that  St.  Paul  had  his  traditional  beliefs 
that  were  subject  to  change,  and  that  he  used  them  in 
expression  and  illustration  of  the  things  that  cannot 
change.  I  will  endeavour  to  confine  myself  to  what  of 
permanent  and  unchangeable  truth  is  expressed  for  us 
in  the  comparison  and  contrast  of  the  two  Adams. 

The  matter  now  thoroughly  brought  before  us  is  our 
universal  interest  in  an  act  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  our 

157 


158     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

universal  relation  to  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ.  The 
act  was  the  lifelong  and  death-completed  one  of  His 
conquest  of  sin,  or,  viewed  on  its  positive  side,  the 
resurrection-completed  one  of  His  victory  of  holiness 
and  Ufe.  The  question  is,  how  can  that  act  of  His 
be  the  act  of  us  all?  The  other  question  involved  in 
this  is  one  as  to  His  person.  How  is  it  not  only  that 
that  act  of  His  is  the  act  of  us  all,  but  that  He  Himself 
is  one  with  us  all;  so  that  all  and  each  of  us  can  speak 
or  think  of  our  real  or  true  self  only  in  terms  of  Him; 
and  that,  not  merely  as  the  example  of  what  we  ought 
to  be,  or  the  author  of  our  right  being,  but  as  in  a 
deeper  and  more  intimate  and  real  sense  our  own 
living,  present,  better,  or  best  selves  ?  How  in  a  word 
is  Christ  so  universal  and  eternal  in  us  all.'^ 

This  is  a  truth  or  fact  of  experience  in  itself,  and 
apart  from  any  resemblance  or  analogy  to  be  found 
elsewhere  in  our  experience;  but  there  is  a  resemblance 
or  analogy  that  may  be  of  help  to  us  in  apprehending 
or  in  explaining  it.  We  are  speaking  of  where  our 
holiness  and  our  life  come  from,  and  how  they  come, 
—  let  us  ask  ourselves  where  our  sin  comes  from  and 
our  death,  or  how  they  come.  Let  us  observe  here,  by 
the  way,  that  the  death  and  life  spoken  of,  as  vital  to 
the  argument,  are  not  natural  but  spiritual  death  and 
life.  The  death  is  the  death  that  sin  is,  and  the  Hfe 
is  that  which  holiness  is.  St.  Paul  describes  us  as  dead 
or  alive  according  to  these,  and  altogether  indepen- 
dently of  the  physical  facts.  Now,  then,  our  sin  and 
our  death  are  not  individual  facts ;  they  do  not  originate 


The  First  and  the  Last  Adam        159 

with  ourselves  but  are  wholly  prior  to  ourselves. 
Whence  then  and  how  do  they  come?  Sin  and  death 
are  not  individual  but  race  facts.  All  humanity  has 
sinned,  and  sins,  and  dies  as  one  man.  If  we  call  this 
act  or  condition  a  jally  because  not  sin  and  death  but 
holiness  and  life  are  its  true  law  and  liberty  and  blessed- 
ness, then  humanity  fell  or  is  fallen  as  one  man.  Let 
us  call  that  one  Adam,  Man,  Humanity.  Then  we 
say  that,  in  Adam  all  fell,  all  sin,  all  die.  It  makes 
no  difference  whether  we  say  that  his  act  was  the  act 
of  all,  or  that,  because  the  act  of  all  was  in  fact  one, 
we  merely  express  that  fact  by  representing  it  as  his 
act.  The  truth  is  simply  this,  that  our  sin  in  its  origin 
and  in  its  universality  is  not  ours  but  Adam's,  Man's, 
Humanity's  sin,  and  we  are  only  recipients  and  partici- 
pants of  it. 

It  would  remove  several  difficulties  and  not  at  all 
alter  the  truth  or  force  of  St.  Paul's  argument  if,  in 
Rom.  V.  12,  we  should  interpret  the  Apostle  as  saying, 
not  that  as  a  matter  of  fact  through  one  man  sin  entered 
into  the  world,  but  that  as  through  one  man  sin  entered 
into  the  world.  And  when  he  adds,  and  death  through 
sin;  and  so  death  passed  unto  all  men,  for  that  all 
sinned,  —  I  ask,  not  as  yet  how  much  St.  Paul  meant 
to  say,  but  only  how  much  of  truth  there  was  in  what 
he  said.  He  continues.  For  until  the  law  sin  was  in 
the  world;  but  sin  is  not  imputed  when  there  is  no 
law.  Nevertheless  death  reigned  from  Adam  until 
Moses,  even  over  them  that  had  not  sinned  after  the 
likeness  of  Adam's  transgression.     Let  us  put  all  this 


160     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

to  ourselves  in  a  different  way.  Since  Adam,  that  is, 
since  man  was  man,  sin  has  been  in  the  world.  And 
sin  has  been  universal,  reigning  in  its  consequences 
or  in  its  ravages  even  over  those  who  had  not  them- 
selves, or  personally,  committed  sin.  For,  besides  that 
sin  in  a  sense  reigns  in  us  even  prior  to  our  own  sinning, 
as  in  the  case  of  the  very  young,  many  who  actually 
sin  do  not  really  sin,  or  are  not  sinners  in  their  acts. 
The  paradox  can  be  explained  only  by  the  old  distinc- 
tion between  the  matter  and  the  form  of  a  thing.  St. 
Paul  expresses  it  as  follows:  sin  exists  even  when  and 
where  there  is  no  law;  that  is,  the  matter  of  sin.  But 
sin  is  not  imputed  when  there  is  no  law;  that  is,  the 
form  of  sin.  It  is  the  law  only  that  gives  form  to  sin, 
or  that  makes  sin  sinful.  We  might  say  that  sin  is 
not  sinful  until  it  is  informed,  until  it  knows  or  under- 
stands itself;  to  him  who  knows  it  to  be  sinful  it  is 
sinful;  to  him  who  innocently  does  not,  it  is  not  sinful. 
But  materially,  or  in  the  matter  of  it,  it  is  the  same  in 
both  cases;  and  the  natural  consequences,  what  we 
might  call  the  natural  penalties,  follow  all  the  same 
from  both.  When  St.  Paul  says  that.  Death  reigned 
from  Adam  until  Moses  (that  is,  even  prior  to  the 
giving  of  the  law),  even  over  them  that  had  not  sinned 
after  the  likeness  of  Adam's  transgression,  it  is  not 
necessary  that  he  should  mean  physical  death.  Sup- 
pose we  take  death  to  mean  in  this  connection  nothing 
that  is  mere  law  of  nature  but  only  what  is  consequence 
of  sin.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  do  not  the  effects  of  sin 
reign  universally,  even  over  those  who  are  innocent  of 


The  First  and  the  Last  Adam        161 

it,  or  who  are  ignorant  of  it  and  therefore  are  not 
formally  sinful  ?  As  I  have  said  elsewhere,  I  think  it 
would  very  much  lighten  up  St.  Paul's  whole  teaching 
and  thought  if  we  assumed  that  generally  he  does  not 
mean  by  death  the  physical  change,  but  only  the  spirit- 
ual quality  and  consequences  which  sin  has  attached 
to  it.  What  else  does  he  mean  when  he  says  that  the 
sting  of  death  is  sin.  Extract  the  sting  by  annulling 
the  sin,  and  death  ceases  to  be  death  in  the  obnoxious 
sense.  It  becomes  a  bhssful  and  blessed  change,  a 
birth  or  an  awakening  to  something  higher  and  better. 
Now  it  is  the  oflBce  of  the  law  to  inform  sin  in  both 
ways  or  senses.  It  makes  sin  sinful  in  the  very  act  of 
imparting  to  the  sinner  the  knowledge  of  its  sinfulness. 
When  he  knows  the  law  —  whether  in  nature  or  in 
himself  or  in  the  public  conscience  or  as  revealed  — 
and  recognizes  its  sanctions  and  obligations,  then  he 
knows  sin  as  sin  and  becomes  not  only  materially  but 
formally  or  really  sinful.  I  say  really,  because  sin  as 
such  is  not  a  matter  only  of  the  will  or  the  person,  but 
it  is  of  the  will  or  person  only  in  relation  to  a  known 
and  felt  standard  of  being  as  well  as  of  action.  That 
sin  is  not  imputed  when  there  is  no  law  means  both 
that  the  one  committing  it  cannot  take  cognizance  of 
it  as  sin  when  there  is  nothing  that  reveals  it  to  him 
as  such,  and  also  that  God  does  not  regard  it  as  sin 
in  the  absence  of  the  knowledge  or  consciousness  that 
makes  it  such.  But  still,  to  repeat  what  has  been  said, 
the  act  in  itself  or  in  the  matter  of  it  is  sinful  even 
though  it  be  not  the  sin  of  the  man,  and  its  effects  are 


162     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

largely  the  effects  of  sin,  and  so  it  is  a  fact  that  sin 
reifirns  through  death  even  over  those  who  have  not 
been  guilty  of  sin  of  their  own. 

Let  us  then  take  with  us  just  so  much  of  St.  Paul's 
simile  as  we  can  see  and  feel  the  truth  of  ourselves. 
There  is  a  transgression  or  a  fall  of  which  we  may 
say,  if  not  that  the  fall  of  one  has  been  the  fall  of  all, 
yet  certainly  the  fall  of  all  is  as  the  fall  of  one.  One 
common  spiritual  and  moral  catastrophe  involves  us 
all,  so  that  not  only  without  exception  do  the  innocent 
share  with  the  guilty  the  actual  effects  and  penalties 
of  sin,  but  sooner  or  later  all  share  the  sin  and  the 
guilt  itself.  We  ought  not  to  carry  the  simile  further 
than  it  actually  goes,  and  we  need  not  carry  it  further 
than  we  are  able  to  see  that  it  goes.  Neither  do  I 
mean  to  say  that  in  the  hght  of  later  thought  or  science 
the  facts  and  analogies  of  man's  moral  condition  might 
not  be  differently  or  better  expressed.  But  the  thing 
had  to  be  expressed  once  for  all  in  a  particular  time, 
and  it  is  useless  to  object  that  it  was  viewed  and  ex- 
pressed from  some  of  the  points  of  %new  and  through 
some  of  the  transient  aspects  of  the  time. 

There  are  contrasts  as  well  as  comparisons  between 
the  ways  in  which  we  stand  related  to  the  act  and 
person  of  Adam  on  the  one  side  and  those  of  Christ 
on  the  other.  It  would  make  our  treatment  unneces- 
sarily difficult  if  I  should  attempt  to  follow  St.  Paul 
through  the  subtleties  and  intricacies  of  one  of  his 
obscurest  passages.  I  will  give  only  the  conclusions 
which  we  can  all  see  to  be  both  true  in  themselves  and 


The  First  and  the  Last  Adam        163 

necessary  to  the  Apostle's  argument.  The  great  all- 
inclusive  first  fact  to  be  brought  out  by  the  comparison 
is  this :  All  that  can  be  compressed  and  expressed  in  that 
one  term  The  Fall  of  Man  is  potentially  reversed  by 
the  more  that  is  meant  by  the  Resurrection  or  Redemp- 
tion of  Man.  By  the  fall  let  us  understand  only  what 
we  know  to  be  spiritual  matter  of  fact  within  our  own 
experience:  our  universal  subjection  to  the  power  and 
penalties  of  sin;  death  viewed  not  as  an  event  and  a 
beneficent  event  in  the  necessary  order  of  nature,  but 
as  the  sting  and  the  curse  belonging  not  to  the  thing 
in  itself  but  to  what  sin  has  made  it,  just  as  what  we 
call  the  flesh  has  come  to  mean  not  the  natural  thing 
pertaining  to  us  as  men,  but  the  sin-affected  and  per- 
verted thing  into  which  the  reign  of  sin  in  it  converts 
it.  Besides  these  primary  features  of  the  fall  there  are, 
of  course,  other  vital  aspects,  but  these  are  the  ones 
which  enter  most  visibly  and  tangibly  into  even  our 
sensuous  experience.  Now  just  what  the  fall  has  been 
as  a  general  or  universal  act  and  fact  —  the  death  and 
resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ  is  in  reversal.  All  tl  at 
happened  to  man  as  Adam  or  to  man  in  Adam  is 
reversed  or  undone  by  what  man  has  done  as  Christ 
or  by  what  man  has  done  in  Christ.  The  Resuncction 
or  Redemption  means:  the  power  of  sin  over  us  de- 
stroyed; the  entail  of  death  broken:  the  bondage  of 
sin  in  the  flesh  replaced  by  the  freedom  of  the  spirit 
of  life  in  Christ  Jesus.  This  general  result  of  the 
work  of  Jesus  Christ  as  the  author  and  representative 
of  human  redemption,  as  Adam  stands  for  the  fall,  is 


164     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

more  elaborately  stated  in  the  double  aspect  we  have 
been  considering. 

As  the  fall  was  as  a  single  act  and  our  human  condi- 
tion in  consequence  of  it  is  a  single  universal  fact,  so 
our  redemption  by  Christ  and  our  altered  condition  in 
Christ  are  to  be  viewed  as  a  single  act  and  fact.  The 
act  in  Adam  brought  us  into  and  left  us  in  a  state  of 
spiritual,  moral,  and  natural  condemnation.  Ungod- 
liness and  unrighteousness  reigned  supreme,  and  the 
wrath  of  God  was  revealed  as  a  just  judgment  upon 
them  in  the  self-inflicted  penalties  they  brought  upon 
themselves.  The  law  came  in  with  all  its  awful 
sanctions  and  demands,  not  with  the  expectation  or 
the  effect  of  working  a  cure,  but  only  more  and  more 
to  reveal  and  intensify  the  situation  and  so  to  prepare 
for  the  one  only  effectual  remedy  and  help.  That 
remedy  came  in  Jesus  Christ,  and  was  manifested  and 
proclaimed  as  including  in  Him  in  all  its  operation  and 
consequences  all  who  were  involved  in  Adam's  fall. 
As  this  latter  constituted  in  itself  a  state  of  universal 
condemnation,  so  its  reversal  begins  with  a  proclama- 
tion and  status  of  universal  justification  or  acquittal, 
based  upon  the  sole  necessary  condition  of  a  proper 
sense  of  our  sin  and  death  in  Adam  and  of  our  holiness, 
righteousness,  and  life  in  Jesus  Christ.  The  proper 
sense  of  the  one  is  repentance  and  of  the  other  is 
faith.  These  two  spiritual  attitudes,  by  the  grace  of 
God  working  through  them,  will  of  themselves  work 
in  us  the  death  to  sin  and  the  life  to  God  which  is  the 
divine  salvation  in  Christ.     But  the  beginning  is  an 


The  First  and  the  Last  Adam        165 

absolute  acceptance  with  God  and  an  invitation  to 
appropriate  to  ourselves  and  to  treat  as  our  own  all 
that  is  Christ's  or  that  is  Christ  Himself,  on  the  ground 
that  so  making  it  our  own  in  faith  and  hope  will  be  to 
make  it  our  own  in  reality  and  fact.  How  it  will  do 
so  will  involve  fuller  explanation  which  is  only  touched 
upon  here,  but  which  will  be  the  subject  of  the  following 
chapters. 

The  point  touched  upon  here  and  to  be  hereafter 
further  developed  is  this:  Our  relation  is  not  merely  to 
the  act  of  Christ  but  to  the  person  of  Christ.  Whether 
or  how  much  that  may  be  the  case  with  Adam  also  is 
another  matter;  we  are  certainly  not  now  in  personal 
relation  with  a  personal  Adam  in  anything  like  the 
same  way  in  which  we  are  so  with  a  living  and  personal 
Christ.  We  might  make  out  a  case  in  order  to  push 
the  analogy  as  far  as  it  can  be  made  to  go,  but  surely 
the  Apostle's  essential  argument  does  not  depend  upon 
any  such  forcing.  There  is,  however,  a  generic  if 
there  is  not  an  individual  Adam.  We  are  all  in  the 
race,  and  are  what  the  race  is,  as  an  individual.  We 
have  participated  in  all  its  acts,  have  shared  all  its 
fortunes,  and  are  involved  in  all  its  conditions.  It  is 
the  race  with  all  its  history  behind  it  that  lives  in  us 
in  most  that  we  are  and  acts  in  us  through  most  that 
we  do.  Our  relation  to  Christ  is  certainly  analogous, 
however  far  it  may  be  from  being  identical.  We  are 
in  Adam  naturally  and  therefore  not  necessarily  per- 
sonally; we  are  in  Christ  spiritually  and  therefore 
personally.     We  share  what  we  are  in  Adam  quite 


166     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

independently  of  any  consciousness  or  will  on  our 
part  in  doing  so;  we  can  share  —  actu  —  anything  that 
is  Christ  or  Christ's  only  through  an  act  of  our  own  of 
consciousness  and  will.  We  must  know  Christ  Him- 
self in  order  to  become  what  Christ  is,  it  is  not  neces- 
sary to  know  Adam  personally  in  order  to  be  infallibly 
all  that  Adam  is.  In  a  word,  Christ  must  needs  be  to 
us  and  in  us  a  living  Person;  Adam  is  in  us  as  an 
impersonal  nature.  Something  of  this  sort,  though 
just  precisely  what  is  hard  to  define,  is  contained  in 
St.  Paul's  distinction:  The  first  man  Adam  was  made 
a  living  soul;  the  last  Adam  was  made  a  quickening 
spirit.  The  soul  is  primarily  an  impersonal  principle, 
although  it  may  as  in  man  become  personal.  So  we 
speak,  at  least  in  Greek,  of  the  vegetable  or  the  animal 
soul,  as  well  as  of  the  rational  or  human  soul.  But 
the  spirit  is  essentially  and  necessarily  personal. 

Christ's  act,  therefore,  of  resurrection  or  redemption, 
the  act  by  which  humanity  in  His  person  was  freed 
through  freeing  itself  from  sin  and  was  raised  in 
raising  itself  out  of  death,  —  that  act  could  be  accounted 
the  act  of  us  all  only  because  of  our  relation  not  only 
to  it  but  to  Him.  Because  we  were  potentially  in  Him 
in  His  resurrection  and  redemption,  in  His  human 
personal  attainment  of  righteousness  and  life,  and 
because  He  is  in  us  in  our  entering  into  His  redemption 
and  resurrection,  into  the  likeness  of  His  death  and 
the  power  of  His  resurrection,  therefore  His  initial  act 
could  be  accounted  as  our  act,  even  as  our  final  act  of 
perfect  oneness  with  Him  will  be  accounted  by  us  as 


The  First  and  the  Last  Adam        167 

His  act.  The  one  act  of  righteousness  was  imputed 
to  all  men  for  righteousness,  because  the  one  man's 
obedience  or  righteousness  was  to  make  the  many  men 
righteous. 

The  way  in  which  our  Lord's  obedience  is  spoken 
of  here  and  elsewhere  brings  out  the  fact  that  it  was  as 
the  author  and  finisher  of  our  own  righteousness  that 
He  redeemed  and  saved  us,  and  not  by  undergoing  or 
performing  anything  whatsoever  in  the  stead  of  us  or 
as  a  mere  substitute  for  us. 


XIII 
THE    CHRISTIAN   IN    CHRIST 


What  shall  we  say  then  ?  Shall  we  continue  in  sin,  that  grace  may 
abound  ?  God  forbid.  We  who  died  to  sin,  how  shall  we  any  longer 
live  therein  ?  Or  are  ye  ignorant  that  all  we  who  were  baptized  into 
Christ  Jesus  were  baptized  into  His  death  ?  We  were  buried  there- 
fore with  Him  through  baptism  into  death:  that  like  as  Christ  was 
raised  from  the  dead  through  the  glory  of  the  Father,  so  we  also 
might  walk  in  newness  of  hfe.  For  if  we  have  become  united  with 
Him  by  the  likeness  of  His  death,  we  shall  be  also  by  the  likeness  of 
His  resurrection;  knowing  this,  that  our  old  man  was  crucified  with 
EUm,  that  the  body  of  sin  might  be  done  away,  that  so  we  should  no 
longer  be  in  bondage  to  sin;  for  he  that  hath  died  is  justified  from 
sin.  But  if  we  died  with  Christ,  we  believe  that  we  shall  also  live 
with  Him;  knowing  that  Christ  being  raised  from  the  dead  dieth  no 
more;  death  no  more  hath  dominion  over  Him.  For  the  death  that 
He  died.  He  died  unto  sin  once:  but  the  life  that  He  liveth.  He  liveth 
unto  God.  Even  so  reckon  ye  also  yourselves  to  be  dead  unto  sin 
but  aUve  unto  God  in  Christ  Jesus.  —  Romans  VI.  1-11. 


XIII 

THE   CHRISTIAN   IN   CHRIST 

Our  relation  to  the  act  of  Christ  as  our  redemption 
has  been  practically  resolved  into  our  relation  to  the 
person  of  Christ  as  our  actual  redeemer.  It  is  He  in 
us,  and  not  merely  an  act  of  His  once  performed  for  us, 
that  is  our  real  salvation.  It  is  true  that  in  consequence 
of  that  act  and  through  our  faith  in  it  we  are  in  a 
status  or  state  of  grace  which  is  the  condition  of  salva- 
tion ;  but  the  condition  of  salvation  is  not  yet  salvation. 
It  is  on'y  as  the  act  of  Christ  becomes  not  only  imputa- 
tively  our  act  through  faith,  but  also  really  our  act 
through  participation,  that  we  are  actually  saved. 
That  Christ  died  for  us  is  everything  to  us  if  it  means 
our  dying  with  Him;  it  is  less  than  nothing  at  all  to 
us  if  His  death  and  ours.  He  and  we,  are  not,  or  are 
not  to  be,  so  conjoined.  To  stop  between  the  What 
Christ  did  for  us  and  the  What  Christ  is  in  us  is  a 
fatal  halt.  The  co-crucifixion,  co-resurrection,  and 
co-etemal-life,  is  just  the  gist  of  the  matter  of  our 
salvation.  Now  how  are  we  to  apprehend  this  con- 
junction of  Christ  and  ourselves,  and  —  what  is  the 
focal  point  of  the  relation  —  how  are  we  so  to  conjoin 
His  death  and  resurrection  with  our  own  as  that  He 

171 


172     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

shall  be  to  us,  not  only  a  salvation  provided  for  us  as 
the  object  of  our  faith,  but  a  salvation  effected  in  us 
as  the  attainment  and  end  of  our  faith  ?  In  order  that 
we  may  the  better  realize  the  meaning  of  our  part  not 
only  in  Christ  Himself  but  in  His  distmctive  act  of 
death  and  resurrection,  it  will  be  necessary  to  reflect 
a  Httle  further  upon  St.  Paul's  interpretation  of  our 
Lord's  death  and  resurrection  in  themselves  first. 

The  death  that  He  Himself  died,  what  was  \i?  It 
was,  the  Apostle  replies,  a  death  to  sin.  Now  what 
would  be  on  our  own  part,  and  what  was  actually  on 
Christ's  part,  the  death  to  sin.?  It  could  not  be  a 
mere  physical  fact;  it  must  be  a  moral,  spiritual,  per- 
sonal act.  I  will  endeavour  to  analyze  and  construe 
that  act  in  terms  used  by  St.Paul  himself  and  by  St. 
Peter  after  liim.  St.  Peter,  we  will  remember,  speaks 
of  Christ's  having  brought  us  to  God  through  His  own 
death  in  the  flesh  and  Hfe  in  the  spirit.  Now  the  more 
we  think  of  it  the  more  we  know  that  we  were  not 
brought  to  God  by  the  mere  fact  of  Christ's  having 
been  put  to  death  in  the  body  and  ha^ang  Hved  again 
after  the  body,  or  in  a  resurrection  body.  But  St. 
Peter  himself  makes  it  plain  for  us  by  going  on  to  say : 
Christ  then  having  suffered  (or  died)  in  the  flesh,  do 
you  arm  yourself  with  the  same  mind.  To  go  no 
further,  it  is  the  mind  of  our  Lord  and  not  merely  the 
bodily  expression  of  its  acts  or  sufferings  or  achieve- 
ments that  is  the  main  point  and  the  essential  thing. 
Moreover,  and  what  is  of  more  consequence  still,  the 
mind  of  Christ  in  the  matter  is  that  which  ought  to  be 


The  Christian  in  Christ  173 

our  own,  it  is  the  universal  right  mind  of  humanity 
under  the  conditions  in  which  He  is  its  divine  repre- 
sentative. What  that  right  mind  is  the  Apostle  goes 
on  further  to  specify :  For  he  who  hath  suffered  —  or, 
that  suffering  carried  to  its  Hmit,  hath  died  —  in  the 
flesh  hath  ceased  from  sin.  Christ  has  reached  that 
limit  of  suffering  in  the  flesh  or  for  sin,  and  humanity 
in  His  person  has  ceased  from  sin.  The  thing  to  be 
further  expUcated  is  the  meaning  and  character  of  that 
suffering,  and  consequently  of  that  death.  Jesus  Christ 
was  one  with  us  in  our  nature,  our  conditions,  our 
temptations,  with  the  sole  difference  from  us  of  having 
been  sinless  in  them  all;  which  He  could  be  only 
through  a  human  victory  over  sin  in  them.  The  sin- 
lessness  or  holiness  of  Jesus  could  no  more  than  ours 
be  a  painless  experience.  Given  human  nature,  human 
condition,  and  human  temptation,  and  the  possibilities, 
the  solicitations,  the  deceptions  of  sin,  the  toil,  the 
difficulties,  the  pains  of  holiness  are  not  to  be  met  and 
overcome  without  suffering.  The  Scriptures  do  not 
only  directly  state  that  our  Lord's  immunity  from  sin 
was  a  painful  victory  over  sin,  that  He  was  perfected 
by  means  of  the  things  He  suffered  and  through  suc- 
cessful suffering  of  the  things,  —  they  no  less  distinctly 
testify  that  there  was  that  in  Him  which  He  needed  to 
deny,  to  mortify,  to  crucify;  He  had  to  resist  unto 
blood  striving  against  sin;  He  had  to  call  as  we  with 
strong  crying  and  tears  upon  Him  that  was  able  to 
save  from  death,  and  was  heard  for  His  godly  faith 
and  fear;  He  needed  to  be  obedient  unto  the  bitter 


174     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

limit  o:  death,  and  that  the  most  painful  and  shameful 
death  of  the  cross.  More  explicitly  than  in  all  these 
details  of  His  human  subjection  to  the  human  condi- 
tions of  holiness  and  life,  we  have  here  in  the  passage 
now  before  us  the  comprehensive  statement  that 
Christ's  death  was  the  crucifixion  of  that  old  man  of 
sin  whose  death  in  Him  and  in  us  is  alike  the  condition 
and  the  very  act  and  fact  of  all  human  salvation  and 
life.  It  will  appear  impossible  to  object  to  the  existence 
of  these  necessities  in  our  Lord  Himself  as  in  all  us 
whose  common  humanity  He  shared,  when  we  remem- 
ber not  alone  that  He  did  thus  share  our  humanity,  but 
no  less  that  this  subjection  to  outward  and  inward 
conditions  and  circumstances  and  possibilities  of  sin 
are  as  necessary  to  the  existence  of  human  holiness 
and  righteousness  as  they  are  the  conditions  and  causes 
of  human  sinfulness  and  unrighteousness.  Just  as 
truly  as  the  universal  existence  as  well  as  possibility 
of  sin,  the  strength  of  its  allurement  and  the  power  of 
its  hold  upon  us,  is  the  explanation  and  account  of  our 
human  sinfulness,  just  so  truly  is  it  the  fact  that  our 
Lord's  own  human  subjection  to  all  these  circumstances 
of  sin  and  His  triumph  in  them  and  over  them  is  the 
only  conceivable  and  the  only  possible  explanation  or 
account  of  human  hoHness.  If  our  holiness  must  be 
alone  our  own  victory  over  our  conditions  as  to  sin,  as 
our  sin  is  a  yielding  to  and  being  subjected  by  those 
conditions,  then  Christ's  act,  in  order  to  become  our 
act,  must  have  been  just  the  reverse  and  the  reversal 
of  what  our  own  had  been :  it  was  a  not  yielding  to  or 


The  Christian  in  Christ  175 

being  subjected  by  our  conditions  as  to  sin,  a  victory 
in  and  over  those  conditions. 

Going  then  only  so  far  as  St.  Peter's  words,  we  might 
say  that  Christ  so  suffered  in  our  flesh  of  sin  —  the 
flesh  in  which  we  all  are  sinful  —  and  so  suffered  for 
or  because  of  sin  in  the  flesh,  as  to  have  overcome  and 
destroyed  sin  and  been  Himself  sinless  in  the  flesh. 
The  flesh  which  is  called  sinful  not  only  because  it  is 
the  place  of  the  possibility  of  sin,  but  because  of  its 
actual  subjection  to  sin  in  all  us  the  rest,  was  actually 
without  sin  in  Him  because  in  it  He  broke  that  sub- 
jection and  abolished  that  sin.  He  did  this,  moreover, 
precisely  as  we  must  do  it,  not  by  the  will  of  the  flesh 
or  by  the  will  of  man  —  not  even  by  the  will  of  His 
own  matchless  manhood  —  but  by  that  grace  which 
is  the  power  of  God  working  in  us  through  faith  to  the 
overcoming  of  sin  in  the  production  of  hoHness.  But 
St.  Paul's  choice  of  a  word  carries  us  further  than 
St.  Peter's.  According  to  the  latter,  to  have  died  in 
the  flesh,  as  he  means  it,  is  to  have  ceased  from  sin. 
We  only  conjecture  when  we  undertake  to  say  how 
much  further  his  meaning  goes  than  simply  that  of 
physical  death.  I  have  carried  it  the  whole  length 
of  a  spiritual  death  to  sin  in  the  flesh.  St.  Paul's 
language  is  less  open  to  uncertainty.  He  says  that 
he  who  has  died  is  justified  from  sin.  The  death 
which  is  not  merely  a  cessation  from  sin  but  a  jus- 
tification from  sin  must  with  much  more  explicit  or 
expressed  necessity  be  a  distinctively  spiritual  and 
moral  death.     The  ground  and  meaning  of  that  ne- 


176     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

cessity  it  will  be  profitable  to  analyze  and  endeavour 
to  understand. 

It  is  impossible  that  we  should  be  justified  except 
for  something  in  ourselves  which  can  be  in  us  a  ground 
of  our  justification,  or  at  least  can  justify  our  justifica- 
tion. The  freest  justification  that  even  St.  Paul  can 
preach  is  not  an  absolutely  gratuitous  one,  for  it  is  a 
justification  of  us  upon  the  ground  of  our  faith  —  which 
means,  taking  it  negatively  as  well  as  positively,  upon 
the  ground  of  our  repentance  and  faith.  When  I  say 
that  God  cannot  do  a  thing  I  mean  simply  that  He 
cannot  contradict  Himself;  He  cannot,  for  example,  do 
what  is  absurd  or  immoral.  One  who  is  insensible  of 
either  sin  or  holiness  is  incapable  of  justification;  one 
who  through  the  law  knows  what  they  are  but  neither 
hates  the  one  nor  loves  the  other  is  in  the  nature  of  the 
thing  morally  unjustifiable,  and  therefore  cannot  by 
God  be  justified.  He  who  however  sinful  comes  to 
anything  whatever  of  a  sense  and  hatred  of  his  sin 
and  the  beginning  of  a  love  and  want  of  hohness  can 
be  justified,  because  he  has  arrived  at  the  point  of 
becoming,  not  worthy  or  deserving,  but  susceptible  of 
it.  Now  whether  it  be  the  initial  justification  with 
which  God  invests  even  our  beginning  of  repentance 
and  faith,  or  invests  us  prior  to  these  even  upon  con- 
dition of  them  later;  or  whether  it  be  the  great  final 
justification  when  God  shall  recognize  all  Christ  in  us 
and  ourselves  all  in  Christ,  —  one  thing  from  beginning 
to  end  is  the  inseparable  condition  and  ground  of  our 
justification,  and  that  is  our  own  personal  attitude  or 


The  Christian  in  Christ  177 

posture  towards  sin  and  holiness.  From  the  beginning 
it  must  mean  and  in  the  end  it  must  be  that  which  in 
its  totaUty  and  completion  cannot  be  expressed  other- 
wise than  as  a  death  to  sin  and  a  new  life  in  and  to 
God.  There  is  the  sin  and  the  sinner  in  every  one  of 
us  to  be  resisted  unto  extinction,  to  be  denied,  mortified, 
crucified.  There  is,  potential  if  not  actual,  in  every 
one  of  us  a  spirit,  a  nature,  a  life  of  holiness,  a  personal 
sonship  to  God,  which  needs  to  be  quickened,  con- 
firmed, and  brought  to  perfection.  There  is  no  justi- 
fication whatsoever,  either  possible  or  promised,  which 
is  any  more  separable  than  sanctification  itself  from 
the  express  condition  of  that  repentance  and  faith 
which  mean  from  the  beginning  the  death  to  sin  and 
the  life  to  God.  The  definition  of  any  thing  whatever 
is  that  which  defines  it  not  in  its  process  or  progress 
alone  hut  in  its  end  or  completeness.  The  death  and 
resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ  is  the  very  definition  of 
justification,  because  it  is  not  only  the  human  condition 
of  all  justification  brought  to  perfection  —  that  is,  re- 
pentance and  faith  carried  to  their  limit  —  but  it  is  the 
divine  investiture  of  that  condition  manifested  in  a 
realized  righteousness  and  life.  He  that  has  realized 
his  own  death  and  resurrection  in  Jesus  Christ,  in  the 
true  meaning  of  it  for  himself,  though  it  be  as  yet  only 
in  faith,  is  justified  in  his  faith,  is  as  though  already 
dead  to  sin  and  alive  to  God.  He  that  shall  realize 
his  own  death  and  resurrection  in  Jesus,  in  the  fuller 
and  truer  sense  of  having  brought  it  to  the  actual 
reality  of  an  accompKshed  and  finished  death  to  sin 


178     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

and  life  to  God,  will  know  the  greater  truth  and  joy 
of  a  higher  justification;  but  the  merit  and  the  glory 
of  the  righteousness  in  fact  will  be  as  much  Christ's 
and  not  his  own  as  those  of  the  righteousness  in  faith. 
In  either  sense,  however,  whether  in  faith  only  or  in 
fact  also,  he  who  has  died  with  Christ,  who  has  died 
Christ's  death,  has  in  the  meaning  and  measure  of 
that  act  not  only  ceased  naturally  from  sin  but  been 
justified  morally  and  at  the  bar  of  eternal  justice  from 
his  sin. 

St.  Paul  had  fully  realized  the  danger,  then  and 
always,  inseparable  from  the  conception  of  an  objective 
salvation.  If  our  salvation  is  complete  in  Christ,  and 
we  are  already  upon  right  terms  with  God  upon  faith 
in  that,  then  there  is  a  natural  disposition  in  us  to  rest 
in  that  as  though  it  were  all.  If  we  are  saved  we  are 
saved,  and  we  have  only  to  go  on  believing  that  we  are 
saved,  and  continuing  otherwise  as  we  are.  The 
general  answer  to  all  such  mental  fallacies  is  the 
insistence  upon  an  obliteration  of  anything  more  than 
a  mere  logical  distinction  between  a  grace  of  God 
which  is  objective  to  and  for  us  and  one  which  is 
subjective  in  and  with  us.  There  is  no  Christ  for  us 
really  separate  or  separable  from  Christ  in  us.  Baptism 
into  His  death  and  resurrection  for  us  is  nothing  except 
as  it  is  also  and  equally  baptism  into  our  own  dying 
and  rising  with  Him.  We  must  not  conceive  of  the 
possibility  of  any  real  difference  in  the  things,  however 
it  may  be  possible  or  even  necessary  to  separate  them 
in  thought.     The  root  principle  of  it  all  is  the  fact  that 


The  Christian  in  Christ  179 

nothing  can  be  really  ours,  spiritually  or  personally, 
that  is  not  ourselves  not  only  potentid  but  actu.  Our 
virtue,  righteousness,  life,  salvation,  blessedness,  cannot 
be  things  without  us;  they  are  determined  and  con- 
stituted solely  by  ourselves  and  our  personal  activities. 
Not  my  righteousness  but  Christ's  must  mean  insep- 
arably and  identically  Christ's  and  mine.  Not  I  but 
Christ  in  me,  is  really  —  I  only  in  Christ;  for  Christ  is 
not  another  instead  of  myself,  but  is  only  my  true, 
divine,  selfhood  and  self.  It  is  impossible  to  under- 
stand St.  Paul  without  entering  into  his  conception  of 
Christ  as  our  universal  spiritual  humanity,  ourselves 
in  God,  as  Adam  is  ourselves  in  nature.  The  first  man 
is  of  the  earth,  earthy;  the  second  man  is  of  heaven. 
As  we  have  borne  the  image  of  the  earthy,  we  shall 
also  bear  the  image  of  the  heavenly.  For  that  which 
is  born  of  the  flesh  is  flesh,  and  that  which  is  bom  of 
the  spirit  is  spirit.  As  we  are  one  with  Adam,  and 
what  he  is,  by  fact  of  nature;  so  by  God's  grace,  which 
means  through  God  and  His  activity  in  us,  are  we  one 
with  Christ,  and  what  He  is,  by  act  of  spirit. 

The  essential  matter  is  of  course  our  relation  to 
Christ  in  His  death  and  resurrection,  but  we  shall 
certainly  understand  this  better  by  considering  what 
Baptism  has  to  do  with  it.  And  it  may  be  worth  our 
observation,  in  passing,  that  St.  Paul  makes  as  little 
distinction  between  baptism  and  the  reality  it  stands 
for  as  He  does  between  our  righteousness  as  Christ's 
and  as  our  own.  When  Luther  made  Christianity  to 
consist  in  the  realizing  our  baptism,  it  has  occurred  to 


180     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

me  that  his  meaning  might  be,  that  if  we  could  really 
take  our  baptism  as  being  actually  both  for  us  and  in 
us  all  that  it  meanSy  we  should  know  and  possess  for 
and  in  ourselves  all  that  Christ  is  as  our  righteousness 
and  our  salvation.  Baptism  doth  represent  unto  us 
our  profession,  which  is  —  to  be  made  like  unto  our 
Sa%dour  Christ;  that  as  He  died  and  rose  again  for  us, 
so  should  we  who  are  baptized  die  from  sin  and  rise 
again  unto  righteousness.  Baptism  does  indeed  repre- 
sent unto  us  our  profession,  but  it  does  much  more 
than  represent,  according  to  St.  Paul.  It  is  God's 
own  anointing  and  endowing  us  with  the  grace  of  that 
profession;  it  is  our  birth  from  Himself  with  the  Spirit 
and  into  the  life  of  that  profession;  it  is  consequently  a 
burial  with  Christ  not  only  into  His  death  but  into  a 
fellowship  with  His  dying,  and  a  resurrection  with 
Christ  not  only  into  the  fact  of  His  life  but  into  the 
power  of  His  living. 

It  is  surely  the  least  that  we  can  say  of  the  two 
sacraments  of  His  life  ordained  by  Christ  Himself,  that 
they  were  instituted  to  be  conveyances  to  us  of  Himself. 
This  they  are  to  us,  to  begin  with,  as  expressions  to  us 
of  what  He  is  to  us  and  what  we  are  in  Him;  represen- 
tations to  us  of  our  Christian  profession.  They  are 
the  contents  of  our  faith,  moulds  as  it  were,  into  which 
our  faith  is  to  be  cast  and  to  be  given  shape.  They 
are  God's  specific  and  distinctive  Word  to  us  of  Him- 
self in  us  and  ourselves  in  Him  in  Christ.  But  let  us 
remember  what  a  Word  of  God  is.  It  not  only  means, 
but  in  itself  and  to  faith  is,  what  it  means.     If  the 


The  Christian  in  Christ  181 

sacraments  are  direct  Words  of  God,  what  they  mean 
they  are,  and  what  they  are  in  themselves  they  ought 
to  be  to  our  faith  and  to  ourselves.  It  is  only  the 
proper  response  of  faith  to  God's  direct  Word  to  say, 
that  baptism  not  only  means  but  is  what  it  means ;  that 
in  it  we  are  not  only  declared  but  made  members  of 
Christ  and  children  of  God.  It  is  only  a  similar 
language  of  faith  to  say,  that  the  Lord's  Supper  is  to 
us,  not  only  a  sign  of  something,  but  the  thing  itself 
of  which  it  is  the  sign;  that  what  we  oflFer  to  God  in  it 
and  receive  from  God  in  it  is  not  a  memory  or  memorial 
only  of  Christ,  but  is  Christ  Himself  alike  the  object 
of  our  faith  and  the  substance  of  our  Hfe.  As  a  word 
of  man  cannot  do  more  than  represent,  a  word  of  God 
on  the  contrary  cannot  do  less  than  be.  That  which 
from  any  one  else  could  not  be  more  than  figurative, 
from  God  cannot  be  only  figurative.  Suppose  that  all 
Christians  could  and  would  in  the  truest  and  best  sense 
simply  and  sincerely  take  God  at  His  word;  that  their 
faith  could  take  His  gifts  as  being  what  His  word 
makes  them.  Suppose  that  every  baptized  man  should 
know  himself  to  be,  and  by  the  power  of  God  in  Him 
through  that  knowledge  truly  undertake  to  be,  one 
with  Christ  Himself  in  all  the  reality  of  His  divine 
Sonship,  what  would  be  the  consequence  ?  Would  not 
all  the  truth  now  too  much  lost  to  the  Christian  Church, 
and  so  much  sought  after  outside  her  pale,  be  at  once 
restored  to  her?  Men  want  a  Gospel  which  is  indeed 
the  power  of  God  unto  salvation.  They  need  indeed 
to  know  first  what  salvation  means,  but  that  rightly 


182     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

understood,  they  have  a  right  to  an  experience  of 
salvation  which  will  leave  them  in  no  doubt  that  it  is 
from  God.  Why  have  they  not  that  assurance  in  the 
Church?  Is  it  not  because  we  do  not  beheve  God? 
Not  that  we  do  not  believe  in  God,  but  that  professing 
to  beUeve  in  Him  we  do  not  believe  Him.  If  Christ 
means  anything  at  all  to  us  as  the  Word  of  God,  He 
means  God  in  us  as  in  Him,  He  means  God  our  own 
actual  righteousness  and  our  own  actual  life.  If 
Baptism  means  anything  at  all  to  us,  it  means  the 
oneness  of  Christ  with  ourselves  and  of  ourselves  with 
Christ.  It  means  the  reality  of  Christ's  death  as  ours 
and  of  ours  in  Him,  the  reality  of  His  resurrection  as 
ours  and  of  ours  with  Him.  If  it  means  all  this,  how 
much  of  all  this  is  it  with  us  and  in  us?  W^hy  the 
immense  difference  and  distance  between  what  our 
Christianity  is  and  what  Christianity  means?  Is  not 
the  fault  all,  not  in  what  God  is  to  us  in  Christ,  but  in 
the  response  which  our  faith  makes  to  Him  in  Christ? 
Now  if  we  are  to  begin  to  take  God  at  His  Word  — 
that  is  to  say,  to  beheve  in  Christ  in  ourselves  and 
ourselves  in  Christ  —  what  are  we  to  take  as  the  exact 
content  of  God's  word,  as  the  substance  of  what  is 
ours  to  be  and  to  do  in  Christ?  Surely  not  what  any 
one  may  individually  and  of  himself  conceive  Chris- 
tianity to  be,  but  what  our  Lord  Himself  has  given 
and  gives  in  the  sacraments  as  divine  conveyances  to 
us  of  Himself  and  His  life.  This  is  what  St.  Paul  sets 
us  the  example  of  doing.  Baptism  into  Christ  not  only 
means  to  him  but  is  to  him  that  personal  incorporation 


The  Christian  in  Christ  183 

into  Christ  which  actually  makes  what  is  Christ's  his 
own,  which  is  in  him  too  the  very  power  and  reaUty 
of  Christ's  death  to  sin  and  Christ's  resurrection  from 
the  dead.  Let  one  make  this  entire  sixth  chapter  his 
own,  not  merely  to  appreciate  the  clearness  of  its 
theoretical  conception  of  the  real  and  vital  relation  of 
the  Christian  to  Christ,  but  to  feel  and  share  its  practical 
sense  and  actual  experience  of  the  living  results  of 
that  relation  in  his  own  quickened  and  risen  self. 


XIV 

NOT  UNDER  THE  LAW  BUT 
UNDER  GRACE 


Are  ye  ignorant,  brethren,  how  that  the  law  hath  dominion  over  a 
man  so  long  as  he  liveth  ?  For  the  woman  that  hath  a  husband  is 
bound  by  law  to  the  husband  while  he  Uveth;  but  if  the  husband  die 
she  is  discharged  from  the  law  of  the  husband.  So  then  if,  while  the 
husband  Uveth,  she  be  joined  to  another  man,  she  shall  be  called  an 
adulteress,  but  if  the  husband  die,  she  is  free  from  the  law,  so  that  she 
is  no  adulteress,  though  she  be  joined  to  another  man.  Wherefore, 
my  brethren,  ye  also  were  made  dead  to  the  law  through  the  body  of 
Christ;  that  ye  should  be  joined  to  another,  even  to  Him  who  was 
raised  from  the  dead,  that  we  might  bring  forth  fruit  unto  God.  For 
when  we  were  in  the  flesh,  the  sinful  passions,  which  were  through 
the  law,  wrought  in  our  members  to  bring  forth  fruit  unto  death.  But 
now  we  have  been  discharged  from  the  law,  having  died  to  that  where- 
in we  were  holden;  so  that  we  serve  in  newness  of  the  spirit,  and  not 
in  oldness  of  the  letter.  —  Romans  VII.  1-6, 


XIV 

NOT  UNDER   THE   LAW   BUT   UNDER 
GRACE 

Is  it  possible,  and  if  so,  how  is  it  possible  for  a  moral 
being  not  to  be  under  the  law  ?  How  can  it  be  possible 
for  one  like  ourselves  to  be  released  from  the  natural 
personal  obligation  of  being  his  own  true,  right  self? 
And  the  law  to  a  man  is  nothing  but  the  expression  to 
him  of  that  obligation,  —  of  what  he  ought  to  be  and 
the  moral  necessity  upon  him  of  being  it.  There  is  an 
additional  feature  or  element  in  the  law;  it  not  only 
declares  to  us  what  we  ought  to  be,  and  impresses  upon 
us  the  moral  obligation  of  being  it,  but  it  emphasizes 
the  fact  that  the  being  it  must  be  our  own.  It  is  our 
own  conscious,  voluntary,  and  actual  being  ourselves 
that  constitutes  us  persons  and  that  attaches  any  value 
or  worth  to  our  being  such.  There  is  no  better  place 
to  insist  upon  this  highest  and  purest  conception  of 
law  than  in  the  part  of  the  Apostle's  argument  that 
lies  just  before  us.  Elsewhere  and  in  certain  connec- 
tions St.  Paul  speaks  of  the  law  in  lower  and  more 
partial  senses,  as  Jewish,  ritual,  or  ceremonial,  formal 
or  Uteral,  etc. ;  but  here  it  is  the  law  pure,  essential,  and 
universal.     And  indeed  with  St.  Paul  there  is  but  one 

187 


188     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

law  —  the  law  of  God,  the  law  of  things,  the  law  of 
persons.  There  are  many  more  or  less  partial  aspects, 
expressions,  forms  of  law  —  mental,  ritual,  moral 
forms  —  but  at  bottom  or  in  themselves  all  these 
mean  one  and  the  same  thing,  and  it  is  only  our  misuse 
or  perversions  of  them  that  rob  them  of  the  deeper 
understanding  and  higher  respect  that  properly  belong 
to  them.  There  is  no  single  aspect,  or  form,  or  even 
letter  of  law  that  our  Lord  Himself  and  St.  Paul  after 
him  did  not  reverence,  for  there  is  not  one  which 
does  not  in  itself  mean  what  all  law  means  —  right 
being,  right  doing,  rightness,  righteousness.  But  here 
at  least,  I  repeat,  we  shall  see  that  St.  Paul  cuts  himself 
loose  from  all  partial  forms  of  law,  and  has  in  his  mind 
only  the  universal,  the  essential.  How  then  is  it  pos- 
sible that  we  shall  be  released  from  the  obligation 
which  every  moral  being  cannot  but  be  under  to  his 
own  law,  the  law  of  his  own  true  and  right  self? 

Let  us  remember  that  it  is  that  very  law  —  and  the 
more  in  proportion  as  it  is  conceived  by  us  in  its  highest 
purity  and  truth,  and  in  the  inviolabiUty  of  its  absolute 
claim  upon  us  —  that  is  the  author  of  our  curse  and 
the  minister  of  our  death.  It  and  it  alone  is  the 
instrument  of  our  judgment,  condemnation,  sentence, 
execution.  That  which  in  itself,  if  fulfilled,  is  the  most 
inherently  essential  condition  and  constituent  of  Hfe, 
cannot  but  be,  if  unfulfilled,  the  cause  and  condition 
of  death.  And  this  is  the  more  so  the  more  distinc- 
tively the  life  and  death  in  question  are  personal, 
spiritual,  moral;  that  is  to  say,  the  more  consciously, 


Not  Under  the  Law  189 

freely,  feelingly,  the  law  of  life  or  death  is  but  the 
mode  of  the  self-activity  of  their  subject. 

In  the  illustration  which  the  Apostle  is  about  to 
give,  let  us  keep  in  mind  that  the  point  to  be  specially 
elucidated  is.  In  what  sense  and  in  what  way  may  we 
be  released  from  the  natural  action,  or  the  natural 
reaction  in  ourselves,  of  our  o^vn  personal  law  of 
righteousness;  seeing  that  that  action  or  reaction  is 
within  ourselves  sin  and  all  its  fatal  consequences, 
spiritual,  moral,  natural  or  physical?  The  duaHty 
more  or  less  latent  or  patent  in  every  moral  personahty 
which  the  argument  before  us  now  begins  to  unfold  is 
neither  an  invention  nor  a  discovery  of  St.  Paul.  It 
has  been  in  one  way  or  another  taken  into  account  by 
every  deepest  thinker  upon  human  nature  and  human 
life.  It  exists  in  us  in  natural  potentiality  prior  to  any 
fact  or  experience  of  sin.  So  far,  therefore,  from  being 
sin  in  itself,  it  is  the  ground  and  condition,  as  of  sin 
too,  so  no  less  of  hohness;  for  it  is  the  ground  of  the 
possibility  of  any  personal  or  moral  activity  and  char- 
acter in  us  at  all.  St.  Paul's  distinction  between  the 
natural  and  the  spiritual  man  in  us  is  not  one  in  itself 
of  sinfulness  or  holiness.  If  there  were  not  the  spiritual 
man  we  should  of  course  be  incapable  of  holiness, 
because  the  spirit  is  the  organ  of  holiness,  or  of  God 
in  us.  But  if  there  were  not  the  natural  man  we  should 
be  incapable  of  either  sin  or  holiness,  for  the  natural 
man  is  the  organ  of  the  law,  by  which  alone  moral 
distinctions  exist  for  us  at  all.  The  original  —  not 
fault  but  —  fact  of  nature  or  of  what  we  call  the 


190     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

natural  man,  what  St.  John  calls  the  will  of  the  flesh 
or  the  will  of  man,  is  its  deficiency  or  insufficiency. 
It  is  not  a  sin  of  the  flesh,  or  of  our  nature,  or  of  our- 
selves in  the  flesh  or  in  our  nature  alone,  that  while  we 
can  conceive  our  law,  or  form  ideals  of  ourselves,  we 
cannot  fulfil  our  law  or  realize  our  ideals.  It  was  not 
intended  that  our  law  should  of  itself  be  able  to  make 
us  perfect  or  our  ideals  to  realize  themselves  in  us. 
They  are  intentionally  deficient  or  insufficient  in  them- 
selves, because  they  are  neither  all  nor  final.  One 
might  say,  then,  that  it  is  a  fallacy  of  the  moral  conscious- 
ness to  hold  ourselves  accountable  or  to  charge  our- 
selves with  transgression  or  sin.  But  we  do  do  so,  and 
cannot  but  do  so ;  and  so  far  from  any  even  true  theory 
or  conception  of  the  deficiency  or  insufficiency  of  our 
own  powers  excusing  or  absolving  us  to  ourselves,  the 
true  progress  of  the  spirit  is  both  to  deeper  experiences 
of  human  inability  and  to  higher  conceptions  and  sense 
of  human  obligation.  If  there  is  paradox  in  this,  it  is 
a  paradox  which  is  our  dignity  and  our  glory.  The 
Christian  explanation  is,  that  our  nature  is  deficient 
because  it  is  made  for  the  supernatural,  to  be  more 
than  it  can  become  of  itself;  that  our  wills  are  both 
necessary  and  insufficient,  because  while  we  can  be 
ourselves,  or  moral,  or  personal  at  all,  only  through 
our  own  wills,  yet  we  can  be  any  of  these  in  the  truest 
or  highest  or  best  only  through  something  infinitely 
other  and  more  than  our  own  wills;  that,  therefore, 
however  paradoxical  it  may  be,  the  necessity  not  only 
of  being  ourselves  but  of  ourselves  so  being  must, 


Not  Under  the  Law  191 

because  it  does,  coexist  and  be  consistent  with  the 
truth  of  our  experienced  impotence  of  ourselves  to  be 
ourselves.  Let  it  be  paradox,  or  antimony,  or  contra- 
diction, or  what  not,  —  whatever  is  essential  to  the 
highest  actual  facts  of  our  freedom,  our  personality, 
and  our  spirituality,  or  our  transcendence  of  our 
nature  and  ourselves  through  union  with  God  in 
Christ,  that  God  has  made  possible,  whether  or  no  it 
is  so  in  itself  or  we  can  see  it  to  be  so. 

Nature,  the  flesh,  ourselves,  are  ordinarily  spoken 
of  by  St.  Paul  as  sinful  —  not,  therefore,  because  they 
are  essentially  or  in  themselves  so,  but  because  they 
are  so  actually  and  in  us  all.  It  is  with  us  now  not 
only  ourselves  and  God,  but  our  sinful  selves  and 
God.  But  as  within  every  natural  man  there  is  a 
spiritual  man,  potential  or  actual;  so  in  every  sinner 
there  is  a  saint,  in  possibility  if  not  in  actuality.  And 
every  man,  developed  up  to  the  point,  and  not  sunk 
below  the  point,  of  spiritual  sensation  and  perception, 
may  be  and  is  more  or  less  conscious  of  the  two  men 
within  him  —  in  both  stages,  of  natural  and  spiritual 
and  of  sinful  and  holy.  For  as  there  is  no  man  without 
the  possibility  of  God  in  him,  so  let  us  hope  there  is 
no  man  without  something  of  the  actuality  of  God  in 
him.  The  man  who  is  unconscious  not  only  of  the 
coexistence  but  of  the  conflict  of  the  two  selves  within 
him  has  not  entered  upon  the  reality  of  human  life, 
for  it  is  just  that  conflict  that  gives  reality  to  hfe. 
There  can  be  no  human  hfe  at  least  that  is  not  a  choice, 
a  probation,  a  decision,  a  renunciation  of  one  thing  for 


192     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

another,  a  victory  of  one  thing  over  another,  a  Hfe  of 
one  thing  through  the  death  of  another.  And  the  one 
thing  or  another  is  one  self  or  another,  one  or  the 
other  of  the  two  men  in  each  one  of  us.  There  are 
always  two  masters  of  whom  only  one  can  be  served, 
two  Hves  of  which  only  one  can  finally  live,  two  men, 
one  or  other  of  whom  must  die  for  the  sake  of  the 
other. 

This  is  so  universally  and  necessarily  the  case,  is  so 
much  the  very  essentia  of  human  Hfe,  that  our  Lord 
Himself  was  not  truly  man  if  He  were  an  exception  to 
the  rule.  And  that  He  was  any  such  exception  is  the 
thing  of  all  things  most  contradicted  by  the  whole 
tenour  of  New  Testament  record  or  interpretation  of 
him.  He  was  in  express  terms  the  transcendence  of 
the  natural  in  us  by  the  spiritual;  the  victory  of  the 
spirit  over  the  flesh;  the  reversal  of  the  law  and  over- 
throw of  the  reign  of  sin  and  death,  through  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  kingdom  of  God  and  Heaven,  of  holiness 
and  life.  All  such  expressions  of  the  human  signifi- 
cance of  Jesus  Christ  can  be  understood  only  by 
acceptance  of  the  following  principle  of  interpretation: 
As  it  is  impossible  for  any  man  to  know  himself  except 
in  the  light  of  the  divine  revelation  of  him  to  himself 
in  Christ  Jesus,  so  is  it  impossible  for  Jesus  Christ  to 
be  known  by  us  except  in  exact  terms  of  ourselves  as 
revealed  in  Him.  To  know  Christ  as  the  spiritual 
man  must  be  identical  with  knowing  the  meaning  and 
truth  of  our  own  spiritual  manhood ;  to  know  the  process 
or  way  of  spiritual  manhood  in  Him,  we  must  know 


Not  Under  the  Law  193 

precisely  what  we  must  go  through,  must  suffer  and 
do  and  become,  in  order  to  be  spiritual  men;  what  He 
went  through  and  accomplished  in  becoming  what  He 
is,  is  in  exact  terms  what  humanity  needs  to  go  through 
with  and  accomphsh  in  becoming  like  Him.  This 
mutual  interpretation  of  ourselves  by  Christ  and  of 
Christ  by  ourselves  is  the  simplest  key  to  the  under- 
standing of  our  salvation  in  Him.  When  we  say  that 
He  was  that  in  our  common  humanity,  the  being  which 
was  its  justification,  its  sanctification,  and  its  glorifica- 
tion, its  redemption,  completion,  and  perfection,  we 
have  said  enough  to  satisfy  all  possible  conceptions 
both  of  His  person  and  His  work;  and  we  have  at  the 
same  time  so  expressed  it  in  terms  of  ourselves  and  in 
language  of  our  own  —  ideal  but  realizable  —  expe- 
rience and  spiritual  possibilities,  that  He  becomes  to 
us  the  comprehensible  truth  of  our  own  salvation,  be- 
cause of  our  actual  human  life  and  destiny. 

We  may  proceed  now  to  St.  Paul's  illustration  of  the 
point  for  which  we  have  been  preparing,  the  crucial 
question  of  our  possible  release  from  the  natural  action 
or  operation  of  our  own  law.  The  law,  we  are  re- 
minded, has  dominion  over  a  man  as  long  as  he  lives. 
How  can  a  man  be  absolved  from  his  highest  obliga- 
tion, or  be  divested  of  his  highest  characteristic,  in  the 
fact  of  that  obligation  ?  How  can  it  cease  to  be  his 
duty  to  attain  and  exercise  his  highest  manhood,  or 
can  he  be  relieved  of  accountability  or  responsibility 
for  failing  to  do  so?  How  can  that  which  reveals  to 
him  and  calls  him  to  his  highest  activity  and  life  not 


194     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

judge  and  condemn  him  when  he  fails  to  accept  the 
revelation  or  respond  to  the  call?  If  obedience  and 
realization  and  fulfilment  by  himself  of  his  law  is  the 
condition,  constituent,  and  content  of  Hfe  and  blessed- 
ness for  him,  how  can  disobedience,  non-realization, 
and  defeat  of  his  law  be  or  be  made  anything  else  to 
him  than  death  and  a  curse  ?  All  these  are  questions 
involved  in  the  nature  of  things  and  not  of  mere  arbi- 
trary suggestion  or  solution.  How  may  a  man  stand 
both  acquitted  and  released  in  the  presence  of  his  own 
inviolable  and  violated  law? 

The  only  possible  way  is  the  one  which  begins  with 
a  distinct  consciousness  of  the  facts  as  they  are.  The 
knowledge  of  sin  is  the  only  beginning  of  salvation. 
The  knowledge  of  sin  as  sin  is  a  moral  and  not  only 
an  intellectual  conception;  it  is  an  attitude  not  only  of 
the  mind  but  of  the  affections  and  of  the  will  with  re- 
spect to  it;  it  is  a  hatred  of  sin.  But  there  is  no  such 
thing  or  possibility  as  a  mere  negative  hatred  of  sin; 
there  can  be  no  hatred  of  sin  that  is  not  a  positive  and 
definite  love  of  holiness.  The  sole  and  indispensable 
condition  of  human  salvation  lies  in  the  only  right 
attitude  possible  for  man  towards  the  two  things  that 
are  his  personal  alternatives,  the  matters  of  his  moral 
choice,  the  determiners  of  his  spiritual  destiny,  the 
makers  and  the  make-up  of  his  heaven  or  his  hell. 
God  and  Heaven  are  a  Spirit,  a  Law,  a  Life;  the  Devil 
and  Hell  cannot  be  done  away  with,  as  at  least  symbols 
of  an  indisputable  actuality,  —  a  counter  spirit  and 
law,  not  of  life  but  of  death.     Now  I  repeat  that  the 


Not  Under  the  Law  195 

only  right  attitude  towards  sin  possible  for  man  in  his 
present  condition  is  that  whose  beginning  is  repentance 
and  whose  end  is  the  putting  away  of  sin,  and  that  the 
only  possible  attitude  towards  holiness  or  God  is  that 
whose  beginning  is  only  faith  but  whose  promise  and 
fulfilment  is  the  **  God  in  us  and  we  in  God  "  of  Jesus 
Christ.  How  are  these  beginnings  to  attain  their 
actual  ends  in  us;  how  is  repentance  to  be  an  actual 
putting  away  of  sin,  and  faith  to  be  indeed  the  life 
and  holiness  of  Christ? 

The  law  has  dominion  over  a  man  as  long  as  he 
lives.  Only  death  can  release  him  from  it.  A  woman 
who  is  married  to  a  husband  is  bound  by  the  law  of 
her  union  and  oneness  with  him  as  long  as  the  husband 
is  aHve.  Only  the  death  of  the  husband  could  release 
her  from  that  bond  and  justify  her  in  uniting  herself 
with  another  man.  In  our  first  or  natural  manhood 
we  are  indissolubly  united  with  and  under  the  law  of 
the  natural  man.  It  is  only  in  him,  subject  to  all  his 
conditions,  bound  by  his  natural  necessities  and  his 
moral  obligations,  that  we  are  men  at  all  or  can  live 
human  lives.  The  moral  obligation  to  obey  or  fulfil 
our  law  is  the  most  imperative  and  inviolable  of  all 
the  conditions  of  human  life.  Obedience  to  it  is  in 
itself  life,  and  violation  of  it  is  death.  When  we  say 
that  nothing  but  death  can  deliver  us  from  the  dominion 
and  operation  of  that  law,  it  is  manifest  that  the  death 
which  can  so  release  us  cannot  be  the  simple  natural 
fact  of  physical  dissolution;  it  therefore  devolves  upon 
us  to  define  what  that  death  is.     The  death  of  the 


196     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

first  husband  is  the  death  in  us  of  the  natural  man; 
and  the  natural  man  is  regarded  in  his  special  and 
highest  relation  to  the  moral  law.  What  is  that  rela- 
tion, both  in  what  it  ought  to  be,  and  in  what  it  actually 
is  ?  Is  he  living  in  it,  —  in  the  sense  in  which  it  not 
only  is  said  but  is  true  that,  He  who  doeth  the  law 
shall  live  in  and  by  it?  If  not,  then  there  is  but  the 
one  alternative,  —  he  must  die  by  it.  But,  while  it  is 
impossible  that  we  shall  be  saved  in  the  life,  or  by  the 
obedience  of  the  law,  there  is  a  way  in  which  we  may 
be  saved  by  its  death,  or  by  the  death  which  it  inflicts. 
Suppose  that  the  law,  while  it  has  failed  to  secure 
obedience  and  so  to  confer  hfe,  has  nevertheless,  in  the 
very  act  and  by  the  very  fact  of  convincing  and  con- 
victing us  of  sin,  taught  us  the  meaning  and  the  obliga- 
tion of  holiness;  suppose  that  it  has  so  brought  us  into 
the  foretaste  and  experience  of  sin  and  its  consequences, 
as  to  impart  at  least  a  suggestion  and  prevision  of 
holiness  with  its  immunities  and  rewards;  suppose  it 
has  gone  yet  further  and  has  nursed  and  nurtured  in 
us  the  sense  of  need  and  the  ardent  longing  for  holiness 
and  hfe,  —  if  the  law  should  go  no  further,  will  it  not 
have  already  put  us  upon  the  road  and  created  in  us 
the  necessary  condition  of  salvation  ?  But  suppose  it 
should  have  gone  further,  —  have  gone  as  far  as  it  can, 
and  have  accomplished  its  perfect  work;  suppose  that 
under  the  discipline  and  experience  of  the  law  we  shall 
have  been  brought  to  the  extremest  knowledge  of  the 
completest  consequences  of  our  condition  under  the 
law;  the  very  end  of  our  natural  resources  and  limit  of 


Not  Under  the  Law  197 

our  natural  powers  and  possibilities ;  —  how  then  shall 
we  characterize  or  describe  the  point  we  shall  have 
reached?  To  have  come  to  the  end  of  ourselves  and 
of  all  potentiality  within  ourselves;  to  have  made  full 
experiment  of  our  law  and  of  the  principle  of  our  own 
personal  obedience  to  it;  to  have  been  tried  by  it  and 
found  wanting,  to  have  sought  life  by  it  and  found 
death,  —  does  not  this  bring  us  fairiy  up  to  that  death 
of  the  old  man,  the  death  in  ourselves,  which  is  the  one 
opportunity  of  divine  grace,  the  one  condition  of  human 
release  and  redemption?  To  have  learned  the  lesson 
the  law  was  commissioned  to  teach;  to  have  been 
brought  to  the  point  nature  and  ourselves  were  pre- 
destined to  reach;  to  have  been  thus  prepared  for  God's 
part  and  our  own  eternally  predetermined  activity  in 
Him,  this  is  the  way  in  which  the  law,  not  through  its 
life  but  through  its  death,  has  performed  its  part  in 
bringing  us  life. 

What  we  mean,  then,  by  the  death  of  the  old  man, 
the  first  husband  in  us,  is  this :  As  long  as  we  were  in 
our  old  selves,  or  our  own  selves,  we  were  under  the 
dominion  of  a  single  moral  alternative  —  either  to  live 
by  our  law  or  to  die  by  it.  That  is  to  say,  we  were 
under  the  moral  necessity  either  of  realizing,  fulfilling 
ourselves  in  accordance  with  the  principles  and  con- 
ditions of  our  moral  perfection  and  blessedness,  or  else 
of  experiencing  the  consequences  and  suffering  the 
penalties  of  something  more  and  worse  than  merely 
having  failed  in  and  lost  these.  For  moral  failure  or 
loss  is  something  different  from  mere  natural  failure 


198     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

or  loss;  and  its  penalties  are  different.  It  is  a  failure 
that  brings  with  it  condemnation  and  a  loss  that  in- 
volves in  it  guilt.  The  death  of  the  old  man  in  us 
consists  in  part  in  our  full  reahzation  of  our  failure 
and  loss  in  him;  but  it  consists  in  yet  greater  part  in 
our  full  sense  of  sin  and  guilt  in  him.  Fellowship  or 
participation  in  the  death  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  realiza- 
tion within  ourselves  of  the  meaning  and  reality  of 
His  death,  is  an  actual  experience  of  the  deadness  of 
ourselves  in  ourselves  alone,  in  union  with  mere  nature, 
the  old  man  or  Adam,  the  first  husband,  the  flesh.  It 
is  something  more,  however,  than  that  mere  sense  of 
impotency  or  deadness  to  the  requirements  and  activi- 
ties of  the  real  life  of  the  spirit.  The  impotence  or 
deadness  is  not  of  our  mere  condition,  it  is  of  our- 
selves. Consequently,  the  death  of  which  we  are 
made  conscious  in  Christ  is  the  death  not  of  mere 
deadness  but  the  death  of  sin  and  sinfulness.  The 
adequate  consciousness  of  that  death  in  ourselves  to 
which  we  are  brought  in  Christ,  the  fellowship  it  gives 
us  in  His  attitude  towards  it,  is  the  beginning  and  the 
condition  of  our  deliverance  from  it.  The  conscious- 
ness and  sense  of  being  sinful  is  an  experience  of  the 
death  that  sin  is ;  but  that  very  knowledge  or  experience 
that  sin  is  death  is  already  such  a  death  in  itself  for 
sin  as  carries  in  it  the  death  to  and  from  sin.  Jesus 
Christ  Himself  encountered,  came  face  to  face  with, 
experienced,  not  only  all  the  deadness  of  humanity  in 
itself,  the  flesh,  for  the  hfe  that  is  higher  than  itseff; 
but  all  the  sin  necessarily  involved  in  a  life  lived  only 


Not  Under  the  Law  199 

in  it.  His  human  immunity  from  the  sin  of  the  flesh 
was  purchased  only  by  that  perfect  sense  of  the  sin 
and  death  necessarily  involved  in  a  Hfe  in  the  flesh, 
which  I  have  described  as  being  such  a  death  in  con- 
sequence of  as  to  be  a  death  to  and  from  it.  He  felt 
himself  in  his  humanity  involved  in  the  sin  and  death 
of  humanity;  He  saved  Himself  from  sinning  and 
dying  with  it  by  so  dying  to  its  sin  as  to  rise  out  of  its 
death. 

That  death  and  resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ  was  an 
act  not  only  in  humanity  but  of  humanity.  If  our 
faith  can  meet  and  answer  to  God's  grace;  if  we  can 
see  in  the  act  of  Him  the  act  of  us,  because  the  act  of 
God  in  us,  —  then  not  only  may  we,  but  must  we,  say 
that  with  Him  our  old  selves,  the  old  husband,  in 
union  with  whom  we  sinned,  is  crucified,  dead,  and 
buried.  It  is  not  only  that  he  has  died  from  us,  but 
we  died  in  him;  for  in  him  we  have  felt  and  known  the 
full  weight  of  his  sin  and  his  death;  we  have  expe- 
rienced the  death  for  what  we  were  in  him,  which  is 
the  only  way  to  the  death  to  and  from  what  we  were  in 
and  with  him. 

As  the  wife  can  marry  a  new  husband  only  if  the  old 
husband  is  dead,  and  her  union  with  him  and  life  in 
him  have  come  to  a  lawful  and  rightful  end,  —  so  we 
can  be  in  lawful  and  gracious  union  with  Christ  only 
as  we  are  dead  in  ourselves,  only  as  in  the  old  self 
we  have  known  his  sin  as  sin  and  have  suffered  his 
death  as  death.  But  if  we  have  truly  known  the 
meaning  of  Christ's  death  to  the  flesh  or  old  man  of 


200     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

sin,  then  indeed  are  we  no  longer  under  the  dominion 
of  the  law.  We  are  no  longer  under  its  condemnation 
or  subject  to  its  penalties;  for  have  we  not  already  in 
and  with  Christ  endured  the  one  and  suffered  the 
other?  Have  we  not  already  died  not  only  for  but  to 
and  from  our  sins,  and  been  raised  out  of  and  from 
our  death  ?  We  have  died  in  the  old  man  and  the  old 
life  of  the  law  and  of  sin  and  death,  and  we  are  alive 
now  in  the  new  man  which  is  Christ  and  which  is 
holiness  and  eternal  life. 


XV 
LAW,  SIN,   AND    REDEMPTION 


What  shall  we  say  then?  Is  the  law  sin?  God  forbid.  How- 
beit,  I  had  not  known  sin,  except  through  the  law:  for  I  had  not 
known  lust,  except  the  law  had  said,  Thou  shalt  not  lust:  but  sin, 
finding  occasion,  wrought  in  me  through  the  commandment  all  man- 
ner of  lust.  The  commandment,  which  was  unto  life,  this  1  found  to 
be  unto  death.  The  law  is  holy,  and  the  commandment  holy  and 
righteous  and  good.  Did  then  that  which  is  good  become  death 
unto  me  ?  God  forbid.  But  sin,  that  it  might  be  shown  to  be  sin, 
by  working  death  to  me  through  that  which  is  good ;  —  that  through 
the  commandment  sin  might  become  exceeding  sinful.  For  we  know 
that  the  law  is  spirituals  but  I  am  carnal,  sold  under  sin.  For  that 
which  I  do  I  know  not:  for  not  what  I  would,  that  do  I  practise; 
but  what  1  hate,  that  I  do.  But  if  what  I  would  not,  that  I  do,  I  con- 
sent unto  the  law  that  it  is  good.  So  now  it  is  no  more  I  that  do  it,  but 
sin  which  dwelleth  in  me.  For  I  know  that  in  me,  that  is,  in  my  flesh, 
dwelleth  no  good  thing:  for  to  will  is  present  with  me,  but  to  do  that 
which  is  good  is  not.  For  the  good  which  I  would  I  do  not:  but  the 
evil  which  I  would  not,  that  I  practise.  But  if  what  I  would  not, 
that  1  do,  it  is  no  more  I  that  do  it,  but  sin  which  dwelleth  in  me.  I 
find  then  the  law,  that,  to  me  who  would  do  good,  evil  is  present. 
For  I  delight  in  the  law  of  God  after  the  inward  man:  but  I  see  a 
different  law  in  my  members,  warring  against  the  law  of  my  mind 
and  bringing  me  into  captivity  under  the  law  of  sin  which  is  in  my 
members.  O  wretched  man  that  I  am!  who  shall  deliver  me  out  of 
the  body  of  this  death  ?  —  I  thank  God  through  Jesus  Christ  our 
Lord.  —  Romans  VII.  7-25. 


XV 


LAW,   SIN,   AND   REDEMPTION 

In  all  St.  PauFs  writings  the  passage  next  before  us 
is  the  one  which  gives  us  most  clearly  his  conception 
of  the  law  and  its  operation  in  human  life.  As  we 
have  said,  he  uses  the  term  in  lower  and  partial  senses 
and  even  sometimes  with  opprobrium;  but  in  the  main 
it  is  with  St.  Paul  as  it  is  with  our  Lord;  the  trouble 
with  the  law  is  not  in  the  law  but  in  us  in  our  relation 
to  the  law.  The  law  is  not  only  right  and  good  in 
itself,  it  is  the  very  essence  of  rightness  and  goodness, 
or  at  any  rate  its  identical  expression.  We  can  con- 
ceive of  various  kinds  of  partial  good,  the  goods  of 
outward  condition,  of  the  body,  of  the  mind,  of  the 
affections,  of  the  will,  or  of  the  person  or  personal 
activity.  Only  one  of  these  several  forms  of  good  do 
we  dignify  with  the  higher  designation  of  goodness. 
And  in  the  highest  sense  only  this  one,  if  we  listen  to 
even  philosophy  on  the  subject,  is  real  good :  —  there  is 
nothing  good  but  the  good  will.  The  good  of  the  will 
—  by  which  I  mean  the  person,  and  the  properly  per- 
sonal activity  and  life  —  is  goodness,  which  manifests 
itself  only  in  love,  service,  and  sacrifice.  On  the  other 
hand,  goodness  is  the  good  of  the  will,  or  of  the  person; 
it  is  the  only  true  personal  good,  the  only  perfectness 

203 


204     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

or  blessedness  of  human  activity  and  life.  This  radical 
connection  of  the  two  words  good  and  goodness  is  a 
subconscious  indication  of  the  oneness  and  insepara- 
bihty  of  the  things.  There  is  nothing  in  consciousness 
so  egoistic  or  individual  as  the  sense  of  that  primary 
thing  which  we  call  good,  our  good  or  our  goods.  It 
is  simply  that  which  gives  us  pleasure,  all  pleasures 
from  the  lowest  up  to  the  highest.  What  else  are  the 
goods  of  outward  condition,  of  the  body,  of  the  mind, 
the  heart,  the  will  ?  How  simply  and  easily  the  word 
good  passes  into  the  word  goodness,  and  yet  what  a 
double  chasm  yawns  between  the  two  things  ?  In  the 
first  place  goodness  is  not  the  further  pursuit  and 
attainment  of  our  good,  but  the  voluntary  sacrifice 
and  loss  of  it.  It  is  a  passage  over  from  purest  egoism 
to  purest  altruism,  from  thought  and  pursuit  of  our- 
selves to  thinking  of  the  things  and  seeking  the  life  of 
others.  And  then,  in  the  second  place,  this  goodness 
reveals  and  verifies  itself  as  the  good  will,  not  only  in 
the  sense  of  the  goodness  of  the  will  but  in  that  of  the 
good  of  the  will;  that  is,  not  only  as  its  rightness  or 
righteousness,  but  as  its  truest  pleasure,  its  happiness 
or  blessedness.  This  is  the  genesis  or  evolution  not 
so  much  of  the  law  itself  as  of  its  matter  or  content. 

The  law  itself  might  be  conceived  as  having  passed 
through  stages  something  like  the  following:  The  law 
appears  first  simply  as  the  rule  established  by  expe- 
rience for  securing  the  most  of  individual  or  selfish 
good.  It  quickly,  however,  passes  into  the  larger  rule 
of   securing   the   general  or  public  good  against  the 


Law,  Sin,  and  Redemption  205 

invasions  and  encroachments  of  the  individual.  It 
next  manifests  itself  in  the  increasing  sanctities  of  the 
family  and  social  life,  in  the  care  and  protection  of 
the  weak  by  the  strong.  Among  Greek  peoples  the 
law  expressed  the  ideal  of  social  life  and  order,  not 
only  material  or  physical,  but  also  esthetic  and  cultural, 
and  to  a  certain  extent  ethical  or  moral.  With  the 
Hebrews  and  the  more  truly  developed  religious  con- 
sciousness and  life,  the  law  was  the  expression  of  the 
will  and  character  and  purpose  of  God,  revealed  in  all 
the  workings  of  things,  but  manifested  more  particu- 
larly in  the  life  of  men  as  a  law  of  righteousness. 
With  Jesus  Christ  the  law  becomes  more  distinctly 
spiritual  in  both  origin  and  nature.  It  is  not  only 
the  rule  or  mode  of  the  divine  acting  and  of  all  personal 
acting  in  union  and  harmony  with  it.  The  law  is  not 
a  code  or  a  mode,  but  a  spirit  and  a  life.  There  is  all 
the  difference  between  law  and  life  that  there  was 
between  the  tables  of  stone  and  the  Spirit  of  Jesus,  or 
between  the  prophets  commanding,  condemning,  and 
announcing  death,  and  the  Lord  proclaiming  liberty 
and  imparting  life.  Now  there  is  not  one  of  these 
stages  or  forms  of  law  that  is  not  legitimate  and  neces- 
sary in  its  place  and  order,  or  that  is  not  taken  up 
and  included  in  the  one  working  of  the  one  only  and 
universal  law  of  God,  of  persons,  and  of  things.  Take, 
for  example,  the  first  and  lowest  law  of  our  own  indi- 
vidual good  and  egoistic  pleasure.  The  only  good  as 
such  we  can  know  at  all  is  our  own  immediate  good; 
if  we  did  not  know  that,  how  could  we  know  the  good 


206     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

of  another,  or  of  all,  or  of  God  ?  Christianity  requires 
of  us  to  love  others  as  we  love  ourselves,  and  to  do  to 
them  as  we  would  have  them  do  to  us.  It  builds  all 
the  forms  of  good  as  material  into  the  final  structure; 
and  does  not  hesitate  to  exhibit  in  that  structure  not 
only  the  highest  good  as  goodness,  but  equally  goodness 
as  the  highest  good.  We  must  lose  ourselves  in  good- 
ness; but  when  we  have  truly  done  so,  then  in  goodness 
we  find  again  ourselves  in  our  own  highest  good.  It 
is  not  an  utterance  of  sentimentality  but  the  true  voice 
of  God  and  the  true  ultimate  experience  of  humanity, 
that  the  only  final  good  of  man  is  goodness.  Chris- 
tianity is  the  divine  science  of  life. 

That  law  thus  in  its  supreme  and  universal  sense 
was  in  the  mind  of  St.  Paul  is  easy  enough  to  prove  in 
the  passage  at  present  before  us.  The  law,  he  says, 
which  was  unto  life  was  found  by  me  to  be  unto  death; 
its  end  is  life;  in  itself  it  is  life;  but  its  actual  effect 
upon  and  in  me  is  death.  The  law  is  holy,  and  the 
commandment  holy,  righteous,  and  good;  yet  it  is  the 
occasion  if  not  the  cause  in  me  of  sin;  but  for  the  law 
I  should  not  be  sinful.  The  law  is  spiritual,  but  I  am 
carnal,  sold  under  sin;  that  is  to  say,  in  myself  or  in 
my  flesh  I  am  so  little  the  subject  of  my  true  law  of 
holiness  and  life,  that,  on  the  contrary,  I  am  as  much 
subject  to  the  counter-law  of  sin  and  death  as  the 
slave  sold  in  the  market  is  to  the  master  who  has 
bought  him.  Even  in  the  flesh,  or  in  our  natural 
condition,  we  cannot  but  know  our  law,  in  lower  or 
higher  if  not  in  the  highest  meaning  or  conception  of 


Law,  Sin,  and  Redemption  207 

it.  If  we  do  not  as  yet  know  it  as  the  spirit  and  per- 
sonality of  God  in  us,  yet  we  may  know  it  as  the  ideal, 
the  truth,  beauty,  and  worth  of  ourselves.  Or,  if  we 
do  not  know  it  so  high  as  that,  we  may  know  it  as  the 
rule  of  the  greatest  good  to  ourselves,  to  others,  and 
to  all.  In  whatever  lower  or  higher  form  we  may 
know  our  law,  we  know  that  it  is  only  an  expression 
of  what  we  ought  to  be  or  do,  and  not  at  all  of  what 
we  actually  are.  Not  at  all  what  we  would  be  are  we; 
on  the  contrary,  we  are  very  much  what  we  would 
not  be.  We  consent  then  to  the  law;  we  recognize 
and  acknowledge  it,  admit  its  claims  and  confess  its 
authority;  more  than  that,  I  approve,  admire,  and 
desire  the  law ;  I  may  say  that  I  delight  in  the  law  — 
after  the  inward  man,  in  that  true  best  self  which  lies 
at  the  root  of  us  all ;  in  fact  I  do  actually  and  at  bottom 
will  the  law,  —  who  does  not  ?  who  would  not,  if  he 
could,  be  his  most  perfect  self  and  enjoy  his  most 
complete  blessedness  ?  —  but  do  I  ever  fulfil  the  law  ? 
Everything  but  that  —  but  just  the  one  thing  that  is 
the  meaning  and  end  and  life  of  the  law!  And  why 
do  I  not.''  The  difficulty  is  in  me,  in  myself,  in  my 
flesh;  for  in  mere  nature  or  in  my  natural  condition, 
and  under  the  law  alone,  I  and  my  flesh  are  one;  in 
the  old  man  or  the  first  husband  I  am  nothing  but  he 
and  know  nothing  but  him.  Though  with  my  reason 
I  may  apprehend  a  higher  law  of  him,  or  of  myself 
in  him,  and  with  my  will  may  desire  and  intend  and 
attempt  its  realization,  yet  in  my  flesh  I  discover  and 
know  full  well  another  law  that  runs  directly  counter 


208     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

to  that  higher  law  of  the  right  reason  and  the  true 
will.  This  other  law  or  counter-law  we  have  now  to 
consider. 

What  is  sin,  and  what  is  the  genesis  or  origin  of  it 
in  ourselves  individually  or  personally.?  To  begin 
with,  it  is  in  its  actual  operation  certainly  not  an 
individual  but  a  collective  thing;  it  is  in  us  as  one 
man,  in  our  solidarity  as  a  race.  As  in  the  race  so  in 
the  individual  it  is  not,  in  one  sense,  in  us  prior  to  the 
law;  and  in  another  sense  it  is  in  us  prior  to  the  law. 
We  have  explained  that  by  saying,  that  in  the  matter 
or  material  of  it  it  is  in  us  all  prior  to  any  consciousness 
or  knowledge  of  it,  and  therefore  prior  to  any  personal 
part  in  it  of  our  own;  but  that,  since  sin  is  essentially 
a  personal  thing,  and  cannot  properly  be  said  to  exist 
outside  of  the  consciousness  and  the  will,  that  which 
within  these  would  be  sin,  without  these  is  not  so  and 
cannot  be  so  accounted.  St.  Paul  declared,  as  we  saw, 
that  sin  was  universal  in  the  world  in  its  ravages  and 
its  natural  consequences  before  the  law  even,  in  those 
therefore  to  whom  it  could  not  be  imputed  as  sin, 
because  in  them  it  was  antecedent  to  knowledge  or 
will.  How  is  the  case  with  ourselves  now?  As  it 
was  with  the  race  so  is  it  with  the  individual,  —  that 
there  is  a  stage  or  state  in  which  ignorance  of  sin  is 
innocence  of  sin.  St.  Paul  says  of  that  state,  I  was 
alive  once;  it  may  have  been  a  very  natural  and  a 
very  joyous  life,  but  it  was  the  life  of  an  animal,  or 
at  best  of  a  child,  and  not  that  of  a  man.  The  plea 
is  sometimes  made  for  primitive  or  immature  races 


Law,  Sin,  and  Redemption  209 

that  they  be  left  in  their  innocence,  or  in  their  ignorance 
of  sin.  Not  that  sins,  that  are  materially  such,  and 
such  in  excess,  do  not  exist  among  them,  but  that 
they  are  much  less  dreadful  done  in  ignorance  than 
they  would  be  done  consciously  and  in  violation  of 
law.  I  do  not  purpose  to  discuss  any  such  special 
plea,  but  how  would  the  principle  do  as  a  universal 
maxim?  Would  it  be  better  to  leave  all  races  and 
individuals  in  ignorance  and  so  in  innocence  of  sin? 
There  is  a  state,  then,  before  the  law;  or  before  that 
which  in  any  way  reveals  to  us  the  difference  and  the 
opposition  between  that  which  we  are  and  that  which 
we  ought  to  be.  When  that  revelation  comes,  and 
however  else  it  comes,  it  comes  to  us  always  as  a  law, 
—  then  sin  comes  to  its  birth  in  us ;  that  which  was  in 
us  before  and  was  not  sin,  is  none  the  less  in  us  still 
and  is  sin.  Before,  sin  was  dead,  or  dormant,  and  I 
was  alive;  now  sin  is  alive  and  I  am  dead.  Not  that 
I  at  once  realize  my  condition  as  death;  we  speak  of 
things  as  they  are  in  the  end,  not  as  they  seem  at  the 
beginning.  Once  having  conceived  the  law,  there  is 
no  deliverance  from  its  final  condemnation  and  death 
but  in  an  act  of  divine  redemption  and  salvation. 
The  law  is  there  alike  for  us  all;  it  may  appear  very 
differently  to  us  severally  and  individually,  but  the 
difference  is  in  us  and  our  apprehensions  of  it  —  not  in 
itself  and  in  its  claims  upon  us;  and  just  in  proportion 
as  we  have  been  brought  by  it  out  of  the  innocence  of 
mere  ignorance,  do  we  see  and  know  that  the  issues  of 
it  with  us  are  the  one  alternative,  life  or  death. 


210     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

Was  it  well  for  us  that  sin  should  thus  be  born  in 
us?  The  law  came  to  be  —  not  the  cause  certainly, 
but  —  the  occasion  of  sin ;  it  came,  in  revealing  right, 
to  disclose  and  expose  wrong;  in  imparting  the  con- 
ception and  ideal  of  holiness,  to  uncover  the  meaning 
and  actuality  of  sin;  by  showing  the  way  of  Hfe,  to 
awaken  the  consciousness  and  quicken  the  sense  of 
death.  Everything  that  belongs  to  or  constitutes 
human  life  originates  in  the  moment  in  which  the  law 
reveals  itself  to  the  man.  If  his  animal  or  infantile 
happiness  or  life  dies  in  that  moment,  his  reason  and 
his  will,  as  his  own  and  himself,  come  to  birth  and  begin 
to  live  in  it.  The  end  of  the  law  is  the  evolution  of 
selfhood  or  personality.  Formal  freedom,  choice,  de- 
cision, accountability  or  responsibiUty,  the  awful  task 
or  business  of  making  Kfe  and  determining  destiny, 
the  act  of  coming  of  age  or  attaining  manhood  and 
taking  into  our  own  hands  the  questions  and  issues 
of  true  or  false,  right  or  wrong,  good  or  bad,  happiness 
or  misery,  blessedness  or  curse,  life  or  death,  —  all 
these,  and  how  much  more,  are  the  creations  of  the 
law,  are  born  in  us  with  its  first  utterance  to  us,  and 
grow  in  us  with  its  clearer  revelations  and  higher 
claims  and  demands  upon  us.  Nature  is  good,  but 
the  goodness  of  nature  is  neither  the  distinctive  goodness 
nor  the  proper  good  of  man.  His  goodness  and  good 
come  only  in  his  own  reaction  upon  things,  and  not  in 
their  action  in  or  upon  him.  Those  things  are  best 
for  him  which,  however  difficult  or  painful  or  trying, 
or  just  because  they  are  so,  call  out  the  truest,  strongest, 


Law,  Sin,  and  Redemption  211 

best  reactions  from  himself.  Viewing  sin  as  the  power 
against  us  the  most  prevalent;  the  most  directly  antag- 
onistic to  our  personality,  to  our  true  being  and  our 
right  acting;  the  one  thing  that  most  inevitably  con- 
fronts us  and  affects  our  nature  and  destiny;  and 
remembering  that  as  surely  as  our  own  sinfulness  and 
death  come  from  yielding  to  its  activity  in  and  upon 
us,  so  surely  do  our  holiness  and  life  come  in  and 
through  or  from  our  meeting,  overcoming,  and  putting 
it  away  from  us,  it  may  well  appear  that  the  law  has 
conferred  upon  us,  not  indeed  the  highest  boon  —  that 
it  is  inadequate  to  bestow  —  but  the  next  truest  benefit, 
in  awakening  in  us  the  knowledge  of  sin.  For  the 
knowledge  of  sin  is  the  condition  and  the  beginning  of 
holiness,  as  the  conquest  of  sin  is  certainly  for  us  the 
only  way,  if  not  the  very  truth  and  life,  of  holiness. 

The  two  points  with  regard  to  sin  upon  which  St. 
Paul  here  dwells  are :  First,  that,  when  through  the  law 
we  awake  to  or  come  to  the  consciousness  of  sin,  we 
find  it  already  existent.  It  has  not  as  yet  been  sin  in 
the  form  of  it,  but  it  has  already  been  sin  in  the  matter 
of  it.  We  have  been  sinning  materially  long  before 
we  have  been  doing  so  formally.  That  is,  we  have 
contradicted  the  spirit  and  transgressed  the  law  of 
true  and  right  being  and  living,  long  before  the  doing 
so  was  our  own,  or  the  sin  of  it  was  our  sin.  In  that 
sense  and  to  that  extent  we  may  say  that  sin  is  in  us 
but  not  of  us.  When  we  come  into  moral  being,  when 
our  own  action  begins,  and  our  quality  or  character  is 
ready  to  differentiate  itself  into  good  or  bad,  that  in 


212     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

reaction  with  which  it  is  to  do  so  is  ready  at  hand. 
We  have  not  to  make  or  to  go  to  find  sin.  The  material 
of  our  choice  is  already  with  us;  we  have  only  to  say 
whether  we  will  make  sin  our  own  by  accepting  it,  or 
by  rejecting  it  make  holiness  our  own.  Sin,  in  a  word, 
is  something  not  ourselves,  in  relation  with  which,  in 
reaction  with  or  against  which,  we  ourselves  become 
sinful,  or  else  holy.  In  contrary  ways,  through  oppo- 
site reactions  with  it,  all  our  spiritual  character  is 
determined  through  our  own  attitude  and  activity  with 
regard  to  sin.  This  relation  to  sin,  as  something 
through  the  most  vital  dealing  with  which  we  become 
ourselves,  and  yet  as  something  not  essentially  our- 
selves, and  which  therefore  in  putting  away  we  do  not 
cease  to  be  but  rather  truly  begin  to  be  ourselves,  is 
the  condition  of  the  Apostle's  conception  of  redemp- 
tion. 

The  other  point  with  regard  to  sin  here  dwelt  upon 
is  this:  That  so  far  from  the  law  of  itself  putting  an 
end  to  sin,  it  aggravates  it  and  makes  it  more  exceeding 
sinful.  Sin,  or  the  sinful  thing,  committed  ignorantly 
and  therefore  innocently,  is  nothing  in  comparison 
with  the  same  thing  committed  knowingly  and  guiltily. 
The  errors  and  excesses  of  mere  nature,  of  animals 
or  children  or  savages,  or  of  those  types  of  civilization 
where  the  mere  natural  impulses  have  the  maximum 
of  play  with  the  minimum  of  self-consciousness,  are 
not  only  comparatively  harmless  but  even  tend  to 
balance  and  moderate  and  correct  themselves.  On 
the  contrary,  in  the  communities  where  there  is  the 


Law,  Sin,  and  Redemption  213 

most  of  moral  thoughtfulness  and  reflection,  where 
reason  and  conscience  and  the  strong  and  free  will 
are  made  the  most  of,  there  not  only  is  the  exceeding 
sinfulness  of  sin  the  most  clearly  conceived  in  thought, 
the  most  intensely  realized  in  consciousness,  the  most 
thoroughly  reprobated  by  both  judgment  and  senti- 
ment, but  there  also  sin  actually  exists  in  its  most 
exceeding  sinful  manifestations.  Where  law,  not  only 
in  its  outward  sanctions  but  in  its  inward  real  antago- 
nism to  sin,  most  exists,  there  sin  in  its  worst  forms 
most  prevails.  Not  only  this,  but  the  law  where  most 
sincerely  intended  and  most  earnestly  insisted  upon 
has  another  even  more  hateful  reflex  tendency  and 
effect.  It  tends  inevitably  to  the  production  and 
cultivation  of  hypocrisy.  Modern  England  like  ancient 
Judaea,  the  home  of  the  moral  law  and  of  the  moral 
consciousness,  has  not  been  least  amenable  to  the 
charge  of  national  hypocrisy.  Paris  may  make  out  a 
true  bill  against  London  for  its  uglier  immorality  and 
less  refined  sensuality,  and  worse  still  for  its  con- 
stitutional hypocrisy,  but  is  the  law  to  be  condemed 
because  in  its  war  against  sin  it  makes  sin  not  only 
theoretically  but  actually  blacker  and  more  sinful  ? 
Would  it  be  better,  then,  to  go  back  from  the  moral  to 
the  natural,  to  give  up  the  law  and  take  again  to  the 
instincts  and  impulses.^  At  any  rate  St.  Paul's  con- 
viction was  that  the  end  as  the  effect  of  the  law  was 
to  reveal  sin  by  developing  it,  to  expose  it  by  showing 
it,  and  to  prepare  the  way  for  its  extinction  by  making 
it  offensive  to  the  consciousness  and  exhibiting  it  in 


214     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

its  true  nature  and  consequences  in  knowledge  and 
experience. 

What,  then,  in  one  word  of  anticipation  of  fuller 
treatment,  is  redemption  ?  It  is,  first,  to  know  what 
sin  is,  and  to  feel  it  for  what  it  is.  It  is  to  know  that 
sin  and  death  and  hell  are  all  sjnonymous  terms.  It 
is  to  realize  with  St.  Paul,  in  the  second  place,  that  sin 
is  a  separate  and  a  separable  thing  from  ourselves. 
Though  it  is  in  us  it  is  not  of  us,  except  in  so  far  as 
we  ourselves  make  it  our  own  by  taking  it  into  our- 
selves. And  as  it  is  ours  only  by  our  taking  it  into 
ourselves,  so  it  may  be  made  not  ours  through  our 
putting  it  out  of  ourselves.  In  the  third  place,  we 
may  of  ourselves  go  so  far  at  least  as  tliis:  Of  the  two 
men  within  us,  with  which  one  shall  we  identify  our- 
selves ?  St.  Paul  recognized  as  we  may  an  inner  man 
within  himself  who  was  unequivocally  on  the  side  of 
the  law  and  against  sin.  It  is  true  that  he  confessed 
also  to  an  outer  man,  of  whom  he  says  —  or  rather, 
in  whom  he  says  of  himself:  The  law  is  spiritual,  but 
I  am  carnal,  sold  under  sin.  In  me,  that  is,  in  my 
flesh,  dwelleth  no  good  thing.  For  I  delight  in  the 
law  of  God  after  the  inward  man;  but  I  see  a  different 
law  in  my  members,  warring  against  the  law  of  my 
mind,  and  bringing  me  into  captivity  under  the  law  of 
sin  which  is  in  my  members.  Now  the  vital  point  with 
St.  Paul  was.  Which  of  those  two  men  was  he  ?  It  is  a 
question  with  each  one  of  us,  and  a  question  in  which, 
above  all  others,  the  deadly  issue  between  reality  and 
hypocrisy  depends  upon  the  sincerity  and  the  thor- 


LaWy  Siriy  and  Redemption  215 

oughness  with  which  we  decide  it.  For  even  under  the 
law  a  man,  though  he  be  unable  to  separate  or  divorce 
himself  from  his  sin,  can  set  himself  against  it.  This 
is  what  St.  Paul  does.  He  deliberately  and  deter- 
minedly disclaims  and  disowns  the  sinful  self  in  him, 
and  identifies  himself  and  takes  his  stand  with  that 
other  self  which  delights  in  the  law  and  repudiates  the 
deeds  of  the  flesh.  That  which  I  do  I  know  not;  I 
was  doing  it  before  I  knew,  and  I  do  it  now  not  with 
but  against  my  will;  for  not  what  I  would  that  do  I, 
but  what  I  hate  that  I  do.  But  if  what  I  would  not, 
that  I  do,  then  I  consent  unto  the  law  that  it  is  good; 
and  then  it  is  not  I  that  do  it,  but  sin  that  dwelleth  in 
me.  In  my  divided  self,  the  true,  real  I  is  in  and 
with  the  self  that  hates,  not  in  that  which  lusts  after 
and  does  sin.  If  I  cannot  wholly  separate  myseK  in 
act  or  fact  from  the  flesh  of  sin,  I  can  at  least  repudiate 
and  disclaim  it  as  being  the  real  self  of  my  love  or 
will  or  meaning.  If  I  cannot  effect  a  divorce  from  the 
first  husband  a  vinculo,  I  can  at  least  do  so  a  mensa 
et  toro.  This  is  as  far  as  St.  Paul  could  go  under  the 
law,  but  he  could  and  would  go  so  far;  and  so  far  is 
a  very  important  step  towards  our  going  farther.  For 
the  divorce  a  vinculo  from  the  old  man  and  from 
under  the  law  is  impossible  for  God  without  myself. 
We  cannot  too  much  insist  that  God  cannot  put  away 
sin  from  a  man  who  does  not  put  away  sin  from  him- 
self. With  the  soul  its  marriages  and  divorces  are 
nothing  if  not  its  own  acts.  And  there  is  a  divorce 
for  the  soul,  but  it  is  only  through  death;  only  in  the 


216     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

death  of  that  from  which  it  is  divorced,  only  in  its 
own  death  in  that  from  which  it  is  divorced. 

Blessed  be  God  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord! 
There  is  a  divorce  a  vinculo  from  the  body  of  this 
death,  —  from  sin,  because  from  our  old  selves  of  sin. 
In  Jesus  Christ  not  only  is  there  a  death  for  and  from 
sin,  but  there  is  a  death  for  us  for  and  from  sin. 
Through  Him  we  have  been  enabled  to  know  and 
feel  sin  for  what  it  is  —  so  to  know  and  feel  it  for 
what  it  is,  as,  in  knowing  the  death  it  is,  to  enter  into 
the  fellowship  of  Christ's  death  and  to  know  the  power 
and  reality  of  His  resurrection. 


XVI 

THE    CONDEMNATION    OF   SIN 
IN    THE   FLESH 


What  the  law  could  not  do,  in  that  it  was  weak  through  the  flesh, 
God  sending  his  own  Son  in  the  likeness  of  sinful  flesh  and  for  sin 
(or,  as  an  offering  for  sin),  condemned  sin  in  the  flesh:  that  the  re- 
quirement of  the  law  might  be  fulfilled  in  us,  who  walk  not  after  the 
flesh,  but  after  the  spirit.  —  Romans  VIII.  3,  4. 


XVI 

THE   CONDEMNATION   OF  SIN   IN   THE 
FLESH 

There  is,  first,  the  simple  fact  of  our  Redemption. 
In  Christ  Jesus  we  are  no  longer  under  the  condemna- 
tion of  sin;  and  because  we  are  no  longer  under  its 
condemnation,  therefore  also  we  are  no  longer  under 
its  power  and  dominion.  In  our  faith  we  see  ourselves 
as  God  in  His  grace  sees  us.  It  is  the  function  and 
measure  of  faith  to  answer  to  the  divine  grace,  as  the 
reflection  in  the  mirror  answers  to  the  object  before  it. 
It  is  our  Christianity  to  see  ourselves  in  Christ.  But 
we  must  see  Him,  if  we  would  see  ourselves  in  Him; 
as  per  contra  we  must  see  ourselves  in  Him,  if  we  would 
see  Him.  We  must  see  Christ  and  ourselves  mutually 
and  identically  dead  for  and  from  sin,  and  alive  to 
and  with  God.  Grace  and  faith  must  realize  themselves 
each  in  the  other,  and  become  one  in  the  act,  as  God 
and  man  are  one  in  Christ. 

Before  we  enter  into  the  subject  of  our  redemption 
in  Christ  we  must  first  review  the  subject  of  Christ's 
redemption  of  us,  and  endeavour  to  bring  to  a  head 
all  that  has  been  previously  said  on  the  subject.  We 
may  do  that  in  a  careful  study  of  a  passage  immediately 

219 


220     The  Gospel  According  to  ^aint  Paul 

before  us,  and  some  kindred  passages.  What  the  law 
could  not  do,  says  the  Apostle,  in  that  it  was  weak 
through  the  flesh,  God,  sending  His  own  Son  in  the 
likeness  of  sinful  flesh,  and  as  an  offering  for  sin, 
condemned  sin  in  the  flesh;  that  the  requirement  of 
the  law  might  be  fulfilled  in  us,  who  walk  not  after 
the  flesh  but  after  the  spirit.  What  could  the  law  not 
do.?  The  absolutely  only  thing  that  it  could  do  was 
to  condemn  us  and  to  subject  us  to  the  penalties 
inherent  in  and  inseparable  from  its  transgression.  It 
could  neither  not  do  this,  nor  do  anything  else.  This 
is  not  an  arbitrary  fiat  but  a  necessary  fact.  To  make 
sin  not  death,  if  hoHness  is  fife,  or  to  intervene  between 
the  sin  and  the  death  which  it  is,  is  no  less  a  natural 
impossibility  than  a  spiritual  contradiction. 

What  the  law  could  not  do  it  could  not  do  because 
of  the  inherent  weakness  of  the  flesh,  or  man  in  him- 
self, to  obey  the  law,  to  achieve  the  righteousness  which 
is  the  necessary  requirement  of  the  law.  The  law  is 
unable  to  present  man  righteous,  or  to  justify  him  before 
God,  because  it  is  unable  to  bring  or  to  make  him 
righteous.  If  it  cannot  present  him  righteous  or  justify 
him,  it  can  only  present  him  unrighteous  or  condemn 
him. 

What  the  law  could  not  do,  God,  sending  His  own 
Son  in  the  likeness  of  the  flesh  of  sin,  condemned  sin 
in  the  flesh,  in  order  that  the  righteous  requirement, 
or  the  righteousness,  of  the  law  might  be  fulfilled  in  us. 
There  are  here  several  very  great  questions,  not  all  of 
which  are  to  be  considered  quite  yet.      Greatest  of  all 


Condemnation  of  Sin  in  the  Flesh       221 

is  the  christological  question  of  what  or  whom  we 
mean  by  His  own  Son.  Next  greatest  is  what  we 
understand  by  God's  sending  His  own  Son  in  the 
Hkeness  of  the  flesh  of  sin.  The  second  we  will  con- 
sider now  and  leave  the  first  for  separate  and  fuller 
discussion.  For  the  present  let  us  assume  the  highest 
(which  I  believe  to  be  also  the  truest)  sense  in  which 
we  can  take  the  words  in  question,  God's  own  Son. 
We  have  then  to  inquire  into  the  meaning  of  our 
Lord's  having  come  in  the  likeness  of  sinful  flesh,  or 
of  the  flesh  of  sin.  From  the  longest  and  most  careful 
reflection  upon  the  language  and  the  matter  of  the 
New  Testament,  I  am  unable  to  accept  the  words  as 
containing  in  themselves  the  implication  that  our  Lord 
came  into  a  nature  or  condition  which  was  like  but 
was  not  the  flesh  of  sin.  I  feel  the  theological  or  doc- 
trinal diflficulty,  but  I  also  feel  that  that,  and  that  alone, 
is  the  reason  or  excuse  for  modifying  the  meaning  of 
words  which  are  nowhere  else  so  modified.  I  should 
much  rather  meet  the  real  difficulty  some  other  way; 
or,  if  I  cannot  fairly  do  so,  then  face  it  squarely.  Like 
and  likeness  in  the  New  Testament  do  not  mean  *'  like 
but  different ";  they  mean  like  in  the  sense  of  identical. 
When  our  Lord  w^as  made,  or  became,  in  the  likeness 
of  men.  He  did  not  become  something  similar  to  but  not 
the  same  as  man;  He  became  man.  When  He  was 
tempted  in  all  points  like  as  we  are.  His  temptations 
were  not  in  some  points  only  and  not  in  others  like  our 
own ;  they  were  essentially  and  identically  our  own,  with 
the  sole  additional  circumstance,  which  does  not  affect 


222     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

the  nature  or  character  of  the  temptations,  that  whereas 
all  we  are  overcome  by  them,  He  overcame  them. 
And,  humanly  speaking,  that  is  all  the  difference 
between  sin  and  holiness.  Sin  or  holiness  cannot  be 
in  mere  nature  or  condition;  they  can  be  only  in  what 
we  are  or  do  in  the  nature  or  the  condition.  In  the 
identical  nature  and  condition  in  which  all  we  the 
rest  without  exception  are  sinners,  because  sin  through 
the  nature  or  condition  overcomes  and  enslaves  us,  in 
that  precise  nature  and  condition,  with  no  further 
difference  than  this,  Jesus  Christ  overcame  sin  and  in 
doing  so  redeemed  our  nature  from  it  and  its  conse- 
quences. His  own  utter  and  absolute  sinlessness  or 
holiness  was  just  the  essence  of  all  Christianity,  but 
that  sinlessness,  I  can  never  tire  of  repeating,  was  no 
mere  fact  of  His  nature,  human  or  divine,  it  was  His 
work  in  our  nature,  the  work  of  our  salvation.  And 
that  it  might  be  a  work  in  our  nature,  it  was  necessary 
it  should  be  our  nature,  precisely  as  it  is,  in  which  the 
work  was  done.  When  we  call  the  flesh  sinful,  or  speak 
of  it  as  the  flesh  of  sin,  we  do  not  mean  that  it  is  sin- 
ful, but  only  that  it  is  that  through  which  we  are  sinful. 
The  flesh  was  only  not  sinful  in  Jesus  because  He  was 
not  sinful  in  it.  His  holiness  in  the  flesh  was  the  de- 
struction of  sin  in  the  flesh.  At  the  same  time  He  Him- 
self was  holy  in  the  flesh  only  by  not  being  in  the  flesh; 
that  is  to  say,  by  dying  in  it  and  to  it,  and  living  in  and 
to  God.  This  is  the  critical  and  crucial  act  in  Him 
which  requires  fuller  explanation,  at  the  same  time  that 
it  will  always  defy  or  transcend  full  understanding. 


Condemnation  of  Sin  in  the  Flesh       223 

Our  Lord  is  said  to  have  come  not  only  in  the  like- 
ness of  the  flesh  of  sin  but  also  for  or  about  sin.  The 
well-known  elliptical  Greek  expression  is  legitimately 
expanded  into  as  an  offering,  or  sacrifice,  for  sin,  but 
the  meaning  of  it  need  not  be  limited  to  that.  Jesus 
Christ  was  indeed,  in  the  most  perfect  sense,  an  offering 
or  sacrifice  for  sin;  but  in  a  yet  wider  sense  it  is  right 
to  say  that  His  whole  business  or  work  in  the  world 
had  to  do  with  sin,  was  concerning  or  about  sin.  This 
is  so  only  because  the  life  of  man  in  the  world  is  mainly 
if  not  wholly  concerned  about  sin,  is  mainly  if  not 
wholly  determined  by  his  attitude  or  relation  to  sin. 
A  man  is  only  what  he  personally  accomplishes  and 
becomes;  and  his  accomplishment  and  becoming  con- 
sist in  and  are  measured  by  what  he  overcomes.  For 
us  at  least,  whatever  of  positive  or  actual  holiness 
there  is  in  us  is  negatively  so  much  sin  met  and  sur- 
mounted. It  is  not  with  us  that  holiness  comes  first, 
as  a  fact  or  matter  of  nature,  and  then  sin  ensues  as  a 
falling  away  from  that ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  the  matter 
at  least  of  sin  first  presents  itself  to  us  and  with  us, 
and  holiness  originates  and  consists  in  the  resisting, 
denying,  mortifying,  and  finally  crucifying  it  in  our- 
selves, —  and,  so  far  as  it  has  become  part  of  ourselves, 
ourselves  in  it.  Whether  we  make  real  manhood  to 
consist  in  virtue,  or  the  fulfilling  of  the  law  of  nature; 
or  in  righteousness,  or  the  fulfilling  of  the  law  of  God; 
or  in  holiness,  or  sharing  the  personal  spirit  and  nature 
and  life  of  God ;  —  in  any  case  the  positive  quality 
which  distinguishes  and  constitutes  manhood  is  acquired 


224     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

in  overcoming  its  opposite,  and  is  not  itself  antecedent 
to  and  independent  of  its  opposite.  Jesus  Christ  came 
into  the  world,  Jesus  Christ  is  in  the  world,  to  accom- 
plish the  work  of  the  world,  which  is  the  task  of  hu- 
manity. The  Father's  business  which  He  must  needs 
be  about  is  the  business  that  concerns  us  all,  the  busi- 
ness of  becoming  ourselves  through  performing  our 
parts  under  the  actual  conditions  of  human  life.  With 
Him  as  with  us  the  most  characteristic  and  distinctive 
condition  of  human  life  was  temptation,  probation, 
trial;  and  this  comes,  or  can  come,  only  through  the 
varied  assaults  of  the  various  forms  of  evil,  natural, 
moral,  and  above  all  spiritual  evil,  or  sin.  It  is  rational, 
then,  and  true  to  say  that  Jesus  Christ  was  sent  into 
the  world,  and  that  His  business  here  was,  about  sin. 
As  St.  John  expresses  it.  He  was  manifested  that  He 
might  take  away  sin.  And  this  He  did,  —  first,  by 
the  divine  grace  in  Himself  to  overcome  and  destroy 
sin  in  our  nature;  and  then  by  imparting  to  us  the 
selfsame  divine  grace  to  die  with  Him  to  sin  and  live 
with  Him  to  God. 

I  have  said  that  our  Lord's  own  death  to  sin  could 
only  in  a  very  secondary  sense  have  been  the  mere 
natural  removal  from  it  by  physical  death.  It  must 
have  consisted  essentially  in  a  spiritual  attitude  and 
act  in  which  sin  was  met,  overcome,  and  extinguished 
by  its  spiritual  opposite.  It  is  scarcely  enough  to  say 
that  the  spiritual  opposite  is  holiness,  without  saying 
what  holiness  is.  It  is  the  distinctively  spiritual  quality 
or  character,  what  we  are  in  and  through  a  right  per- 


Condemnation  of  Sin  in  the  Flesh        225 

sonal  relation  with  God.  In  this  world  the  states  and 
activities  of  that  right  relation  are  Faith,  through 
which  God  is  what  He  is  to  us;  Hope,  through  which 
we  are  what  we  are  in  God;  and  Love,  which  is  what 
God  is  to  and  in  us  and  what  we  are  in  Him.  But  if 
faith,  hope,  and  love  are  the  activities  of  the  spirit 
which  constitute  hoHness,  righteousness,  and  life,  what 
are  the  spiritual  opposites  of  faith,  hope,  and  love? 
And  how  can  faith,  hope,  and  love  prosper  and  triumph 
save  over  these  opposites?  Our  Lord's  triumph  over 
sin  and  death  was  a  victory  of  the  essential  attributes 
and  attitudes  and  activities  of  the  spirit  as  manifested 
in  human  life  and  under  human  conditions.  It  was 
the  perfection  of  human  faith,  human  hope,  and  human 
love;  it  was  the  complete  realization  of  the  spirit  and 
nature  and  life  of  God  in  us. 

This,  however,  does  not  yet  sound  the  depths  of  the 
meaning  of  our  Lord's  personal  death  to  sin,  and  we 
must  venture  to  extend  a  little  further  our  explorations 
into  the  sacred  circle  of  that  most  holy  experience. 
If  there  has  been  any  consistent  principle  or  philosophy 
in  the  method  of  interpretation  which  we  have  been 
pursuing,  it  must  be  found  in  the  following  particulars : 
The  whole  work  of  Jesus  Christ  in  humanity  must  be 
expressible,  whether  or  no  we  may  succeed  in  expressing 
it,  in  terms  of  distinctively  human  activity  and  expe- 
rience, human  effort  and  attainment,  human  predesti- 
nation and  realization.  Jesus  Christ  accomplished 
and  became  precisely  what  it  was  the  proper  and 
predestined  task  of  humanity  in  Him  to  accomplish 


226     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

and  become.  This  is  not  to  say  that  the  work  of 
Christ  is  not  equally  expressible  in  terms  of  the  divine 
activity.  Jesus  Christ  means  to  us,  What  God  is,  and 
has  done,  and  is  doing  in  humanity.  God  was  and  is 
in  Christ,  reconciling  the  world  unto  Himself,  imparting 
Himself  to  us  and  taking  us  up  into  participation  with 
Himself.  But  God  is  in  us  only  what  we  are  in  Him; 
and  God  does  in  us  only  what  we  do  in  Him;  and 
what  that  is,  must  be  as  perfectly  expressible  in  terms 
of  us  as  of  Him.  That  is  all  the  mystery  or  the  truth 
of  Jesus  Christ;  He  is  perfect  God  in  man  only  as  He 
is  perfect  man  in  God.  His  atonement  was  God's 
at-one-ing  Himself  with  man  in  and  through  the 
responsive  act  of  man  at-one-ing  himself  with  God; 
God's  putting  away  our  sin  in  us  is  accomplished  only 
through  our  putting  away  our  sin  in  God.  What  He 
does  He  does  in  our  doing,  and  what  we  do  we  do 
through  His  doing  in  us.  God  nowhere  and  nohow 
manifests  Himself  save  in  what  things  or  persons  are 
in  and  through  Him.  He  manifests  Himself  so  in 
natural  creation,  and  equally  only  so  in  spiritual 
creation.  God  is  naturally  in  us  immanentally  or 
in  ourselves;  He  is  spiritually  in  us  transcenden tally 
or  in  Christ;  in  either  case.  He  is  in  us  as,  and  in  the 
way  and  degree  in  which,  we  are  in  Him.  In  Jesus 
Christ  God  is  perfectly  in  man  and  man  perfectly  in 
God,  each  because  the  other. 

In  describing  our  Lord's  attitude  and  activity.  His 
business  in  the  world  with  regard  to  sin,  we  must 
follow  the  above  principle  of  interpretation.     We  must 


Condemnation  of  Sin  in  the  Flesh        227 

try  to  conceive  of  it  as  man's  or  humanity's  proper 
business,  right  attitude  and  action,  with  regard  to  sin. 
As  our  representative,  as  absolutely  one  with  us  and 
Uke  us  in  all  our  nature  and  in  all  our  condition,  He 
as  God  has  done  in  us  and  He  as  man  has  done  in 
God  that  which  would  constitute  in  us  and  does  con- 
stitute in  Him  our  salvation,  —  precisely  as  we  should 
have  to  do  it,  and  should  do  it,  in  working  out  our  own 
salvation.  Let  us  follow  ourselves  then,  as  far  as  we 
can,  in  Him,  and  see  ourselves  in  the  act  and  process 
of  our  own  salvation.  Jesus  Christ  then  —  describing 
Him  in  terms  of  ourselves  —  knew  all  the  limitations 
of  our  nature;  He  knew  better  than  we,  because  He 
tried  its  powers  more  faithfully  than  we,  its  inability 
to  go  or  reach  beyond  itself.  He  knew  that  we  are 
but  dust,  that  that  which  is  born  of  the  flesh  is  flesh 
and  can  be  nothing  more  than  flesh.  He  experienced 
to  the  limit  the  impotence  of  the  human  will,  the  will 
of  man,  to  attain  the  ends  and  accomplish  the  require- 
ments of  manhood.  He  uttered  the  universal  expe- 
rience and  voice  of  humanity  when  He  said,  I  can  of 
myself  do  nothing.  More  and  further  than  that,  — 
we  must  not  begin  here  or  at  any  future  point  to  make 
our  Lord's  human  experience  essentially  different  from 
our  own,  or  in  any  respect  different  except  in  the  fact 
that  He  was  humanly  enabled  to  transcend  our  human 
inability  and  overcome  the  sin  that  overcomes  us. 
But  how  did  He  overcome  it  ?  Only  on  the  line  of  our 
own  only  possible  overcoming  it,  the  way  which  God's 
love  and  grace  and  fellowship  have  made  possible  for 


228     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

us  in  Him.  Jesus  Christ  not  only  knew  our  nature  and 
its  natural  limitations;  He  not  only  knew  in  Himself 
our  inabilities  and  insufficiencies  in  ourselves;  He 
knew  in  Himself  too  our  universal  actual  condition  as 
regards  sin.  In  taking  upon  Himself  not  only  our 
nature  but  our  nature  in  its  actual  condition,  He  took 
upon  Him  its  universal  actual  condition  of  subjection  to 
sin  and  death.  He  knew  in  Himself  that  the  humanity 
in  which  He  took  part,  which  He  shared  with  all  us  the 
rest,  was  under  the  actual  curse  of  sin  and  death. 
By  no  mere  fiction  of  imputing  or  reckoning  or  account- 
ing, but  in  most  blessed  actuality  and  fact,  He  took 
our  sin,  our  curse,  our  death,  upon  Him.  As  man 
our  Lord  was  subject  with  us  all  to  sin  and  death,  and 
as  man  He  could  no  more  have  saved  Himself  from 
sin  and  death  than  we  can.  As  man,  God  sent  Him 
and  He  came  into  the  world  to  reveal  and  impart  to 
us  a  divine  salvation  in  which  like  Him  as  man  we  as 
men  might  be  saved.  Jesus  Christ  was  not  saved  by 
any  difference  of  nature  from  ours;  nor  from  any 
difference  of  actual  condition  from  ours.  He  was 
saved  to  the  uttermost  by  knowing  to  the  uttermost 
wherein  His  salvation  lay  —  not  in  His  nature,  not  in 
Himself,  but  in  God;  not  in  the  power  of  a  human 
obedience  to  the  law,  but  in  the  power  of  a  divine 
grace  in  Him,  working  through  faith,  through  hope, 
and  in  love.  Jesus  Christ  knew  in  Himself,  as  in  all 
the  humanity  with  which  He  made  Himself  one,  that 
what  we  call  the  flesh,  human  nature  by  actual  condi- 
tion, was  sinful  —  in  the  sense,  and  only  in  the  sense, 


Condemnation  of  Sin  in  the  Flesh       229 

that  it  was  unable  in  and  of  itself  to  be  otherwise  than 
sinful.  More  exactly,  it  was  sinful  in  the  sense  that 
no  one  in  the  fleshy  not  even  He,  could  be  sinless.  No 
one  more  than  Jesus  experienced  and  felt  the  fact  that 
for  the  flesh  that  was  in  Himself  there  was  nothing  to 
be  done  but  resist,  deny,  mortify,  crucify  it  —  to  die 
in  it  and  so  from  it.  It  was  our  own  old  man,  the 
flesh  of  sin,  the  whole  body  of  sin,  with  all  its  curse 
upon  it,  that  He  took  upon  Himself,  and  put  off  and 
abolished  for  us  all  by  His  death  under  and  from  it. 

Let  us  come  back  to  the  words  of  the  text  of  this 
chapter,  and  close  with  a  brief  exegesis  of  them.  God 
sent  His  own  Son  in  the  likeness  of  the  flesh  of  sin. 
That  means  identically,  no  more  and  no  less,  what  is 
meant  elsewhere  by  our  Lord's  being  made,  or  becom- 
ing, in  the  likeness  of  men.  St.  Paul  says  again:  Him 
who  knew  no  sin  God  made  to  be  sin  for  us,  or  in  our 
behalf,  that  we  might  become  the  righteousness  of 
God  in  Him.  Either  before  or  in  the  flesh  our  Lord 
knew  no  sin.  But  in  the  flesh  He  entered  into  that 
relation,  of  nature  and  condition,  to  sin  in  which  He 
found  the  flesh.  He  took  upon  Him  in  it  its  subjection 
to  sin,  its  curse,  its  death.  I  say  its  subjection :  —  that 
does  not  mean  or  involve  or  imply  His  subjection. 
On  the  contrary,  His  taking  was  the  breaking  of  that 
subjection ;  in  the  flesh  of  our  sinfulness  He  was  sinless. 
—  How  so  ?  Jesus  Christ  had  come  for  or  about  sin, 
and  as  an  offering  or  sacrifice  for  sin.  That  which 
He  offered  up  in  sacrifice  to  God,  that  which  He 
carried  back  with  Him  to  God  from  His  divine  mission 


230     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

to  men,  was  humanity  in  His  person  dead  in  its  old 
self  and  dead  to  its  old  self  in  the  flesh,  and  alive  to 
God  in  the  spirit.  In  that  act  God  condemned  sin  in 
the  flesh,  but  He  condemned  it  how?  By  bringing 
humanity  itself  to  condemn  it  in  itself,  by  bringing 
humanity  to  die  in  itself  to  itself,  and  to  live  in  and  to 
Him.  It  was  the  woman's  seed,  after  all,  that  bruised 
the  serpent's  head.  It  was  humanity  in  Christ  that 
condemned  and  abolished  sin.  Our  Lord  took  our 
flesh  of  sin  only  that  in  it  He  might  accomplish  that 
death  to  sin  which  is  our  own  and  only  salvation  from 
sin.  And  so  the  Apostle  goes  on  to  say :  He  condemned 
sin  in  the  flesh,  in  order  that  the  righteous  requirement, 
or  the  righteousness,  of  the  law  might  be  fulfilled  in  us, 
who  walk  not  after  the  flesh  (in  which  we  are  now 
dead),  but  after  the  spirit  (in  which  we  are  now  alive). 


XVII 
THE    LAW   OF   THE   SPIRIT 


There  is  therefore  now  no  condemnation  to  them  that  are  in  Christ 
Jesus.  For  the  law  of  the  Spirit  of  life  in  Christ  Jesus  made  me  free 
from  the  law  of  sin  and  of  death.  —  Romans  VIII.  1,  2. 


XVII 

THE   LAW   OF   THE   SPIRIT 

From  this  point  on  we  may  be  occupied  with  the 
more  positive  and  detailed  construction  of  that  Hfe  in 
Christ  which,  according  to  St.  Paul,  constitutes,  or  is, 
human  salvation.  There  is  but  one  truth  of  the  being 
in  Christ,  but  there  are  stages  or  degrees  in  the  realiza- 
tion or  actualization  of  that  truth.  There  is  an  object- 
ive being  in  Christ  even  prior  to  faith,  which  is  indeed 
the  condition  and  content  of  faith;  for  how  shall  we 
realize  or  actualize  by  faith  our  being  in  Christ,  unless 
our  being  in  Christ  is  already  a  fact  to  be  so  realized  ? 
Faith  does  not  create  a  fact,  it  only  accepts  one;  the 
effecting  or  creative  cause  in  our  salvation  is  in  God's 
act,  which  comes  first  and  consists  in  His  placing  us 
in  Christ  for  salvation.  Our  act  of  faith  is  only  the 
apprehending  or  realizing  cause,  and  could  not  take 
place  at  all  if  there  were  not  already  in  God*s  act  the 
thing  to  be  apprehended  and  realized.  In  the  truest 
sense  of  distinctively  Christian  faith,  Baptism  may  be 
said  to  properly  precede  Faith;  just  as  in  every  case  the 
act  of  adoption,  or  the  active  adopting,  is  prior  to  the 
passive  or  acceptive  being  adopted.  The  act  and 
tinith  of  Christian  Baptism  furnishes  from  God  the 

233 


234     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

matter  or  content  of  Christian  Faith,  whose  sole  func- 
tion is  to  realize,  to  make  actual  or  real,  our  baptism. 

Not  only  is  there  a  being  in  Christ  prior  even  to  our 
faith,  which  faith  does  not  effect  but  only  accepts,  but 
even  in  the  very  first  act  of  faith,  or  of  spiritual  appre- 
hension and  appropriation  on  our  part,  there  is  already 
the  beginning  of  a  subjective  real,  or  realized,  being  in 
Christ,  which,  as  St.  Paul  holds,  is  the  earnest  and 
pledge  to  us  of  our  complete  real  being  in  Him.  But 
these  earlier  stages  of  being  in  Christ  will  themselves 
be  better  understood  if  we  follow  our  principle  of 
defining  the  thing  at  once  by  what  it  is  not  in  its  pro- 
gress but  in  its  completion.  The  complete  being  in 
Christ  means  the  complete  being  of  Christ  in  us.  The 
branch  is  completely  in  the  vine  only  when  the  life  of 
the  vine  is  completely  in  the  branch.  The  life  of 
Christ,  or  the  life  in  Christ,  is  best  understood  in  its 
perfection  in  Christ  Himself,  or  in  us  conceived  as 
complete  in  Him. 

In  Christ  Himself,  then,  or  in  ourselves  as  we  shall 
be  complete  in  Him,  we  come  to  study  the  law  of 
spiritual  manhood.  St.  Paul  calls  it  The  law  of  the 
spirit  of  life  in  Christ  Jesus.  He  might  equally  well 
have  said  The  law  of  the  life  of  the  spirit  in  Christ 
Jesus.  There  may  be  this  difference:  The  law  of  the 
Spirit  of  life,  or  The  law  of  the  life-giving  Spirit,  em- 
phasizes the  universality  and  the  divine  personality  of 
the  One  source  and  substance  of  all  life,  the  Spirit 
of  God;  whereas  when  we  speak  of  The  law  of  the  fife 
of  the  spirit  —  especially  as,  in  the  case  of  ourselves. 


The  Law  of  the  Spirit  235 

involving  a  contrast  with  the  life  of  the  flesh  —  we 
mean  more  immediately  and  emphatically  the  spirit  as 
our  own.  But  what  is  our  own  spirit  but  the  organ 
of  the  universal  or  divine  Spirit  in  us;  and  what  is  the 
law  of  that  life-giving  Spirit  in  us  but  the  law  of  the  Ufe 
of  our  own  spirit  in  Him  ? 

By  the  law  of  a  thing  we  mean  the  mode  of  the 
thing's  own  proper  operation  or  activity,  —  how  it  acts 
or  operates  when  it  is  true  to  itself,  or  to  its  appointed 
nature  and  function.  The  true  activity  or  function 
of  the  spirit  is  spiritual  life.  We  cannot  define  ontolog- 
ically  the  what  of  the  spirit  or  of  spiritual  life,  any 
more  than  we  can  define  that  of  natural  life.  What 
we  can  do,  and  all  that  we  need  to  do,  in  both  cases, 
is  to  define  the  mode  or  law  of  their  actual  or  phenom- 
enal action;  that  is  to  say,  we  can  determine  and 
express  the  particular  activities  in  which  life  spiritual, 
as  well  as  life  natural,  normally  and  properly  manifests 
itself,  and  in  doing  so  we  are  stating  its  law.  The 
law  of  the  Spirit  of  Hfe,  then,  as  it  is  revealed  in  actual 
operation  in  Christ,  or  as  it  is  manifested  in  an  accom- 
plished human  salvation,  is  the  exact  and  actual  form 
or  mode  of  God's  activity  in  us  in  making  us  spiritual 
men.  Or,  putting  it  the  other  way,  the  law  of  the  life 
of  the  spirit  in  us,  as  manifested  in  our  salvation  in 
Christ,  is  the  form  or  forms  which  our  spirituality 
assumes  in  union  with  Christ  and  in  the  actual  process 
of  our  salvation  in  Him.  We  are  dealing  thus  only 
with  the  observable  phenomena  of  spiritual  Hfe;  as  to 
the  essential  matter  or  substance  of  the  life  of  the 


236     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

spirit,  I  have  only  to  say,  that  as  it  is  the  life  of  the 
Spirit  of  God  in  us,  so  we  only  know  that  it  is  the  life 
of  our  spirit  in  God.  The  Ufe  of  God  as  a  Spirit  is 
communicable  to  all  beings  who,  by  virtue  of  spirit- 
uality in  themselves,  are  capable  of  relationship  or 
participation  with  His  spiritual  nature  or  personal 
disposition  and  character. 

I  am  more  and  more  convinced  that  St.  Paul  gives 
an  exhaustive  as  well  as  exact  inventory  of  the  proper 
activities  or  functions  of  the  human  spirit  under  the 
familiar  terms,  Faith,  Hope,  and  Love.  A  perfect 
faith  would  perfectly  relate  man  to  God,  and  the  life 
of  man  to  the  life  of  God,  as  the  objective  perfect 
cause  of  all  perfection  in  himself.  A  perfect  hope 
would  furnish  the  necessary  subjective  condition  of 
man's  adequate  or  complete  self-comprehension  and 
self-realization  in  God.  A  perfect  love  would  con- 
tribute all  the  substance,  or  matter,  or  content  of  the 
entire  life  of  God  in  man,  and  the  entire  life  of  man  in 
God.  The  perfection  of  God  in  man,  which  is  the 
object  of  faith;  the  perfection  of  man  in  God,  which  is 
the  object  of  hope;  and,  in  the  third  place,  not  alone 
the  perfect  being  of  God  Himself  in  man,  or  of  man 
himself  in  God,  —  but,  by  consequence  of  that,  the 
perfection  in  man  of  that  which  is  most  essentially 
God,  and  the  realization  in  God  of  all  that  is  most 
distinctively  man,  which  is  the  divine  principle  and 
ultimate  reality  of  love  or  goodness,  —  what  outside 
of  or  more  than  this  can  constitute  or  dignify  or  bless 
the  true  life  of  the  spirit  of  man! 


The  Law  of  the  Spirit  237 

What  has  been  said  thus  succinctly,  and  somewhat 
mystically,  of  faith,  hope,  and  love,  as  comprehending 
all  the  proper  functions  or  activities  of  the  life  of  the 
spirit  of  man  here  upon  earth,  is  capable  of  being  said 
not  only  more  in  practical  detail  but  in  more  scientific 
form  and  in  terms  of  more  common  experience.  And 
first  with  regard  to  the  principle  of  Faith:  There  is  no 
disposition  in  general  to  underrate  the  part  and  power 
of  faith  in  the  business  of  life.  In  one  sense  or  another, 
under  one  form  or  another,  all  of  us  recognize  and 
admit  that  the  pith  of  enterprise  and  success  in  action 
comes  from  the  faith  with  which  we  act.  Giving  it  at 
once  the  widest  application,  he  who  has  the  most 
faith  in  things  as  they  are  in  the  world  is  in  the  condi- 
tion and  attitude  to  make  the  most  of,  and  to  derive 
the  most  from,  things  as  they  are  in  the  world.  In 
the  application  of  this  practical  principle  we  are  dis- 
posed to  emphasize  one  side  of  it  to  the  extent  of 
saying  that,  for  the  effectiveness  of  life,  it  is  a  secondary 
matter  what  we  believe;  the  point  is,  how  we  believe  it. 
But,  when  again  we  look  at  the  matter  in  its  largest 
view,  no  one  surely  will  deny  that  it  is  more  effective 
for  life  to  have  faith  in  the  true  ends,  or  end,  of  life 
than  to  have  never  so  complete  a  faith  in  those  ends 
that  are  false  and  delusive.  And  surely,  too,  to  have 
a  perfect  faith  in  and  to  work  with  things  as  they  are 
in  the  world,  as  they  are  in  reality  friendly  and  assistant 
to  the  true  ends  of  life,  differs  by  the  whole  heavens 
from  taking  and  using  them,  with  all  possible  convic- 
tion, as  they  are  not.     I  conceive  the  function  of  faith 


238     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

to  be,  to  bring  the  personality  of  man  —  his  mind, 
affections,  and  will,  and  so  his  life  —  into  understand- 
ing, sympathizing,  and  co-operating  attitude  and  rela- 
tion with  the  truth  and  beauty  and  goodness  of  things 
as  they  are.  I  think  we  should  cease  from  trying  to 
prove  the  unprovable,  and  take  to  knowing  the 
entirely  knowable  fact  that  the  universe  in  which  we 
are  is  a  personal  universe.  The  realities  of  it  are  not 
the  mere  elements  or  rudiments  of  matter  and  mechan- 
ism, but  the  highest  activities  of  spirit  and  life.  Like 
everything  else,  the  universe  itself  is  to  be  defined  by 
itself  at  its  highest  and  not  at  its  lowest,  not  by  its 
lowest  constituent  elements  but  by  its  highest  constituted 
whole  of  divinest  worth  and  value.  The  ultimate 
reality  of  things  as  they  are  is  the  highest  good  of  the 
spirit,  which  is  identical  with  the  highest  spiritual  good 
of  goodness,  or  love. 

Now,  then,  let  us  look  at  the  distinctively  Christian 
faith  as  it  is  portrayed  for  us  in  this  great  eighth  chapter 
of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans.  We  are  brought  in  the 
faith  of  Jesus  Christ  into  the  most  complete  not  only 
understanding  but  unity  with  the  entire  working  of  all 
things  as  they  are  in  the  world.  We  see  the  meaning, 
purpose,  and  glorious  end  of  things;  the  painful  but 
necessary  and  salutary  process  of  things;  the  seeming 
and  superficial  enmity  but  deeper  and  real  friendship 
of  the  things  of  life  for  all  who  understand;  the  actual 
working  together  for  good  of  all  things  to  those  who 
enter  into  the  divine  purpose  and  unite  themselves  with 
the  divine  co-operation;  the  already  assured  more  than 


The  Law  of  the  Spirit  239 

victory  for  those  who,  however  deeply  and  darkly 
involved  for  the  present  in  things  as  they  are,  yet 
know  themselves  to  be  one  and  at  one  with  the  spirit 
and  reason  and  issue  of  things  as  they  are.  Quite 
apart  from  the  question  of  the  objective  correspondence 
of  reality  with  the  contents  of  such  a  subjective  faith, 
one  must  feel  the  advantage  and  power  of  such  a  feeling, 
if  not  knowing,  ourselves  upon  such  terms  of  amity 
with  the  world  with  which  we  have  all  to  do.  Such  a 
faith  in  itself,  apart  from  its  warrant  in  fact,  is  assuredly 
the  best  equipment  for  doing  the  most  in  the  world 
and  making  the  most  out  of  it.  But  how  would  the 
power  and  advantage  be  multiplied  by  the  addition, 
that  the  subjective  conviction  of  faith  is,  in  the  spiritual 
order  of  the  world,  the  ordinary  and  necessary  means 
and  condition  of  the  personal  acting  in  it  of  a  world 
or  kingdom  of  actual  objective  spiritual  reality  and 
fact!  More  important  to  us  than  even  the  power  and 
advantage  that  comes  from  faith  in  the  truth  of  things, 
is  that  which  comes  from  the  truth  and  reality  and 
actual  operation  in  us  of  the  things  of  faith. 

As  to  the  question  of  the  objective  validity  in  fact 
of  the  subjective  contents  of  faith,  I  can  only  repeat 
words  already  used :  for  the  things  of  the  spirit  we  need 
a  more  distinct  and  separate  method  of  their  own. 
The  things  of  sense  experience  are  all  without  us  and 
need  to  be  brought  and  proved  to  us  in  order  to  be 
known.  If  we  make  the  kingdom  of  God  similarly  an 
order  without  us,  like  that  of  nature,  then  similarly, 
too,  it  will  depend  upon  proofs  or  verifications  to  us 


240     TJie  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

of  the  same  kind.  But  the  kingdom  of  God  is  made 
up  altogether  of  what  we  ourselves  are;  not  of  what 
things  are  to  us  or  in  their  action  upon  us,  but  of  what 
we  are  to  things  and  in  our  reaction  with  them.  It  is 
the  kingdom  of  our  own  attitude  towards  and  relations 
with  our  world  of  environment.  The  revelation  of 
God  in  Christ  is  not  designed  to  add  anything  to  our 
natural  or  scientific  knowledge.  It  is  a  revelation  of 
nothing  to  man,  but  of  everything  in  man.  We  see  all 
God,  all  truth,  all  beauty,  all  good  and  goodness,  in 
Him,  in  man  —  and  that  is  all  we  see.  No  more  in 
Jesus  Christ  than  in  us  is  God  visible  otherwise  than 
within  Him,  in  the  quality  and  character  of  His  visible 
manhood  and  consummate  personality.  These  things 
of  the  life  of  the  spirit  itself  can  never  be  proved  to 
the  spirit;  they  can  only  be  proved  in  it.  They  cannot 
be  known  by  proofs ;  they  can  be  proved  only  by  know- 
ing. When  our  Lord  says  to  us,  I  speak  that  I  do 
know  and  testify  that  I  have  seen;  or  when  St.  John 
after  Him  says,  What  we  have  ourselves  seen  and 
known  of  the  Word  of  Hfe  that  declare  we  unto  you, 
here  is  the  testimony  of  spirit  to  spirit  of  the  supreme 
reality  of  things  which  are  true  only  in  the  kingdom 
or  world  of  spirit.  Knowing  beyond  all  peradventure 
and  with  the  only  immediate  certainty  possible  for 
man  —  the  certainty  of  his  owti  interior  personality  — 
the  essential  things  of  the  spirit,  we  may  infer  and 
deduce  connections  of  it  with  the  things  of  external 
and  natural  fact,  —  but  the  moment  we  do  so  we 
must,  in  the  sphere  of  the  natural,  submit  ourselves 


The  Law  of  the  Spirit  241 

loyally  to  the  principles  and  laws  and  tests  of  natural 
knowledge.  If  the  spiritual  man  is  sole  judge  in  things 
exclusively  of  the  spirit,  so  in  the  realm  of  natural 
fact  around  us  there  must  be  no  spiritual  interference 
with  the  autonomy  of  natural  observation  and  con- 
clusion. 

Let  us  sum  up  the  true  spiritual  contents  of  our  faith 
in  Christ.  First,  there  is  the  unquahfied  truth  of  the 
perfect  being  of  God  in  man,  —  not  an  immanental 
being  in  him  which  is  as  true  of  one  man  as  another 
and  as  true  of  things  as  of  men,  but  a  transcendental 
being  in  him,  realized  first  in  Christ  and  through  Him 
to  be  realized  in  us,  a  being  in  us  in  union  of  persons 
and  not  mere  relatedness  of  nature.  This  is  the 
primary  truth  of  the  kingdom  of  God  within  us,  and 
it  is  as  verifiable  by  us  from  within  as  it  is  unprovable 
or  undisprovable  to  us  from  without.  The  Life  that 
was  manifested  to  the  world  in  Jesus  Christ  is  a  life 
in  which  we  are  called  to  share,  and  just  in  proportion 
as  we  do  share  it,  as  we  approximate  to  His  own 
perfect  participation  in  it,  can  we  too  say  Hke  Him, 
I  speak  that  I  do  know  and  testify  that  I  have  seen. 

The  second  truth  of  our  faith  in  Christ  is  the  revela- 
tion and  realization  we  have  in  him  of  ourselves  in  God. 
Christianity  reveals  God  not  merely  as  love,  but  in 
the  highest  personal  form  of  love,  as  universal  and 
perfect  Father.  As  the  supreme  perfection  and  bless- 
edness of  God  consists  in  what  He  is,  in  the  unsurpass- 
able limit  of  His  divine  selfhood  or  personality,  so  the 
supreme  activity  of  God  in  the  world  which  He  has 


242     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

made  not  Himself  is  that  of  His  divine  Self-communi- 
cation. To  other  Himself  in  others  than  Himself,  that 
is  the  highest  work,  the  divinest  act  of  love,  of  which 
even  God  Himself,  or  Love  itself,  is  capable.  So 
Christianity,  without  ever  adequately  saying  or  knowing 
why,  yet  forever  reiterates  and  insists,  that  God  in  the 
Godhead  itself  is  essentially  and  eternally  Father, 
and  in  the  Kosmos,  in  all  the  infinite  creation,  is 
everywhere  Father,  and  in  the  nature  and  destinature 
of  man  is  at  last  and  forever  to  be  known  and  crowned 
Father.  Fatherhood  is  love  concrete  and  eternal  in 
God  Himself.  It  is  love  cVSta^eros  —  love  inherent 
and  essential  in  the  divine  nature  and  action.  Sonship 
is  love  7rpo<^o/3tK05  —  self-reproduced,  no  longer  in  itself 
but  in  another,  —  the  other,  a  veritable  other-self,  with 
whom  it  is  one  not  in  a  numerical,  natural  unity,  but 
a  new,  personal  and  spiritual  unity.  The  eternal 
Sonship  which  is  divine  in  Christ  becomes  human 
through  Him.  It  extends  and  imparts  itself  to  em- 
brace and  include  humanity,  and  in  humanity  the  whole 
creation  of  which  it  is  the  head  and  end.  To  know 
ourselves  in  Christ,  then,  and  in  Christ  to  know  our- 
selves sons  of  God  and  heirs  of  His  own  eternal  life, 
is  indeed  to  know  ourselves  with  a  knowledge  that 
transcends  all  human  science  and  of  which  faith  is 
the  only  possible  human  vehicle  or  expression.  The 
difference  between  fatherhood  and  sonship  is  extended 
into  that  between  love  and  grace;  sonship  is  the  father 
in  the  son,  grace  is  love  in  its  object  —  what  we  might 
call  applied  love,   love  in   energy  or  actuality.     We 


The  Law  of  the  Spirit  243 

speak,  therefore,  of  the  love  of  the  Father  and  the 
grace  of  the  Son,  the  one  standing  for  what  God  is  to 
us,  the  other  for  what  God  is  in  us.  The  one  is  love 
in  itself,  in  its  source  or  origin,  the  eternal  divine 
disposition  toward  us;  the  other  is  love  with  us,  in  act, 
in  divine  operation  within  us. 

As  the  first  two  truths  of  our  faith  in  Christ  might 
be  called  simply  those  of  the  Father  and  the  Son,  so 
the  third  may  be  designated  that  of  the  Spirit.  Or, 
to  put  it  in  the  other  way,  as  the  first  two  may  be 
called  those  of  the  divine  love  and  the  divine  grace,  so 
the  third  may  be  named  that  of  the  divine  Jcoinonia. 
This  word  is  not  adequately  represented  by  communion 
or  fellowship.  St.  Paul  objects  to  the  word  mediator 
in  the  phraseology  of  Christianity,  because  a  mediator 
is  not  of  one  but  of  two;  whereas  God  and  man  are 
not  two  but  one  in  Christ,  and  there  is  nothing,  not 
even  a  mediator,  between  them.  So  I  object  to  the 
words  communion  and  fellowship  simply  as  not  going 
all  the  way  of  that  unity  of  God  and  man  in  Christ 
which  is  the  truth  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  The  truth  of 
the  Spirit  of  God  is  the  truth  of  the  spirit  of  man. 
The  koinonia  is  not  real  or  complete  so  long  as  the 
spirits  are  two  and  not  one.  We  have  it  in  its  complete- 
ness only  as  the  eternal,  personal  Spirit  of  God  is  the 
actual  personal  spirit  of  the  man.  We  have  it  at  all, 
in  its  beginnings  and  growth,  only  to  the  extent  to 
which  the  Spirit  of  God  has  become  our  own  spirit. 
God  is  indeed  in  the  truest  sense  with  us;  but  without 
us  or  within  us  no  man  hath  seen  or  can  see  God 


244     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

otherwise  than  in  what  God  is  in  himself  and  as  him- 
self —  that  is,  in  what  he  himself  is  and  the  spirit  he 
is  of  in  God.  The  truths  of  faith,  then,  are  these  three : 
the  truth  of  God  Himself  in  us,  the  truth  of  ourselves 
in  God,  and  the  truth  of  the  perfected  not  merely 
external  relation  but  internal  unity  or  oneness  of  God 
and  ourselves. 

Having  given  so  much  attention  to  the  principle  of 
faith  as  the  first  great  function  of  the  spirit,  we  may 
deal  more  briefly  with  the  other  two.  I  make  the 
great  point  of  distinguishing  the  action  and  part  of 
hope  from  those  of  faith  because  the  meaning  of  the 
one  has  been  too  much  lost  in  the  overshadowing  light 
of  the  other.  Faith  has  to  do  with  the  infinite  not- 
ourselves  or  about-ourselves  that  is  without  us;  hope 
is  properly  concerned  about  ourselves.  It  is  a  just 
charge  against  Christianity  that  it  has  been  made  too 
much  a  doing  for  humanity  from  without,  and  too 
little  the  doing  of  humanity  from  within.  It  is  a  waiting 
upon  other  powers  to  take  the  place  of  our  own  and 
determine  our  nature  and  destiny,  if  not  independently 
of  ourselves,  yet  with  only  a  negative  and  passive  part 
in  it  of  our  own.  Nothing  is  more  necessary  for  our 
Christianity  than  to  make  it  clear  to  us  that  there  is  no 
such  thing  as  a  grace  for,  which  is  not  also  a  grace  in, 
us ;  that  God  works  in  us  to  will  and  to  do  in  the  matter 
of  our  salvation  not  in  mere  co-operation  but  only  in 
actual  identity  with  our  own  working  out  every  jot 
and  tittle  of  our  own  salvation,  through  His  grace 
working  not  merely  with  but  in  us.     As  faith  is  not 


The  Law  of  the  Spirit  245 

enough  in  itself  or  alone,  and  apart  from  the  objective 
reality  of  its  objects,  so  hope  is  a  real  power  only  in 
conjunction  with  the  inherent  and  essential  truth  of 
its  object.  The  only  proper  object  and  end  of  Christian 
hope  is  what  we  ourselves  may  be  and  do  and  become 
in  Christ,  that  is  to  say,  in  God.  We  do  indeed  dis- 
card or  lose  ourselves  in  and  for  God  in  Christ,  but  it 
is  only  to  re-find  ourselves  in  all  God  is  in  us  and  we 
in  consequence  are  in  Him.  Christianity  does  indeed 
say,  with  Christ  Himself,  I  can  do  nothing  of  myself, 

—  but  only  to  add,  Because  not  of  myself,  because  of 
God  in  me,  therefore  I  can  be  all  things  and  do  all 
things  and  endure  and  overcome  and  become  all 
things.  It  is  a  right  and  a  great  thing,  as  to  believe 
that  God  is  all  things  to  and  for  us,  so  to  hope  that  in 
response  we  can  be  all  things  to  and  for  God.  We  do 
not  in  Christianity  reduce  our  hopes  and  desires  to 
zero  for  their  vanity  and  futility;  rather,  for  the  glory 
and  the  certainty  of  them,  do  we  raise  them  to  infinity 
in  Christ.  We  enter  upon  a  career  which  means  in 
the  end  that  is  assured  to  us  —  perfect  as  our  Father 
in  heaven  is  perfect.     St.  Paul  says:  If  God  be  for  us, 

—  there  is  his  faith;  if  God  is  for  us,  all  is  for  us,  and 
all  things  are  in  reality,  no  matter  what  the  appearance, 
working  together  for  our  good.  What  then.^  Why, 
if  God  is  for  us  then  what  can  be  against  us  ?  What 
can  separate  us  from  Him  or  defeat  us  in  Him  ?  In 
all  that  can  possibly  befall  us  we  are  already  more 
than  conquerors  through  Him  that  loved  us.  There 
is  his  hope  —  a  hope  assuredly  not  in  all  things  done 


246     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

only  for  him,  but  equally  in  all  things  to  be  done  in 
him  and  by  him. 

The  permanent,  essential,  and  eternal  function  of 
the  spirit  is  of  course  that  to  which  faith  and  hope 
are  but  the  entrance  and  introduction.  To  know  God 
in  ourselves,  to  know  ourselves  in  God,  is  but  the 
beginning  of  knowing  what  God  is  in  Himself  and  us. 
Unhappily  there  is  here  again  a  practical  divorce  — 
not  indeed  between  the  knowing  and  loving  God  and 
the  knowing  and  loving  v/hat  God  is,  because  that 
were  impossible,  but  —  between  very  much  supposed 
knowledge  and  love  of  God,  and  any  real  knowledge 
and  love  of  what  He  is.  Is  it  not  something  more  than 
a  theoretical  inquiry  —  a  serious  question  indeed  of 
practical  fact  and  import  —  which  of  two  men  is  more 
personally  acceptable  with  God,  the  man  who  not 
having  faith  in  God  as  a  Person,  nor  knowledge  of 
the  hope  set  before  us  in  Christ,  nevertheless  sincerely 
loves  the  Thing  that  God  is  and  gives  himself  to  it,  or 
the  man  who,  devoted  to  the  Person  of  God,  and 
zealous  in  His  cause,  does  not  love  nor  live  the  Thing 
that  alone  God  is  and  that  alone  is  God  either  in 
Himself  or  in  us.^  Surely  it  is  neither  amiss  nor  un- 
necessary to  insist,  as  St.  Paul  for  Christ  and  Chris- 
tianity so  much  insists,  that  not  a  true  faith  in  the 
truth  of  God,  nor  a  true  hope  in  the  truth  of  ourselves, 
is  after  all  the  ultimate  thing  and  function  of  the 
spirit,  but  that  reality  alone  which  is  the  truth  of  God 
and  of  ourselves. 


XVIII 
THE   MIND    OF   THE   SPIRIT 


For  they  that  are  after  the  flesh  do  mind  the  things  of  the  flesh; 
but  they  that  are  after  the  spirit  the  things  of  the  spirit.  For  the 
mind  of  the  flesh  is  death;  but  the  mind  of  the  spirit  is  Ufe  and  peace: 
because  the  mind  of  the  flesh  is  enmity  against  God;  for  it  is  not  sub- 
ject to  the  law  of  God,  neither  indeed  can  it  be:  and  they  that  are  in 
the  flesh  cannot  please  God.  But  ye  are  not  in  the  flesh,  but  in  the 
spirit,  if  so  be  that  the  Spirit  of  God  dwelleth  in  you.  But  if  any  man 
hath  not  the  Spirit  of  Christ,  he  is  none  of  His.  —  Romans  VIII.  5-9. 


XVIII 

THE    MIND    OF   THE    SPIRIT 

What  has  been  said  of  the  law  of  the  spirit's  activity, 
both  as  the  law  of  the  divine  Spirit  of  hfe  in  us  and 
as  the  law  of  the  life  of  our  own  spirit  in  God,  may 
seem  to  be  beside  the  immediate  course  of  the  Apostle's 
reasoning  which  we  profess  to  be  following.  I  return 
to  it  in  the  analysis  of  that  mind  of  the  spirit  which  the 
Apostle  describes  as  being  life  and  peace.  The  mind 
of  the  spirit,  which  St.  Paul  contrasts  with  that  of  the 
flesh,  is  in  the  first  place,  according  to  him,  based  upon 
the  reality  of  an  objective  fact,  —  the  fact  of  a  con- 
summated and  accomplished  act  in  Jesus  Christ. 
When  just  before  he  had  summed  up  his  vivid  account 
of  man's  natural  condition  in  the  exclamation,  O 
wretched  man  that  I  am!  who  shall  deliver  me  out  of 
the  body  of  this  death  ?  —  the  great  change  of  mental 
attitude  and  feeling  found  instantaneous  and  decisive 
expression  in  the  words,  I  thank  God  through  Jesus 
Christ  our  Lord.  The  new  spiritual  status  is  accepted 
as  solidly  founded  and  completely  established  in  an 
act  or  fact  which  has  existence  as  yet  solely  in  the 
personal  experience  of  the  One  Man  who  before  God 
represents  all  men.     Jesus  Christ  had  in  Himself,  in 

249 


250     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

the  unique  achievement  of  His  individual  manhood, 
broken  the  bands  and  abolished  the  slavery  of  sin  and 
death. 

The  second  point  in  the  mind  of  the  spirit  is  neces- 
sarily the  recognition  of  the  significance  of  that  objective 
act  or  fact  for  ourselves,  or  the  relation  of  our  spirit 
or  spiritual  status  to  the  deliverance  or  redemption 
wrought  in  our  common  humanity  by  the  individual 
act  of  Jesus  Christ.  The  truth  of  the  relation  in 
question  may  be  expressed  as  follows:  The  act  of 
divine  redemption  wrought  in  Jesus  Christ  is  —  rep- 
resentatively, potentially,  and  really  —  an  act  of  God 
wrought  in  humanity;  and  conversely  the  act  of  self- 
redemption  accomplished  by  our  Lord  in  His  humanity 
is  in  all  respects  similarly  an  act  of  humanity  wrought 
in  God ;  that  is  to  say,  in  the  love  and  grace  and  fellow- 
ship of  God,  as  realized  and  manifested  in  the  person 
of  Jesus  Christ.  This  relation  of  Christ  and  His  act 
of  redemption  to  us,  and  of  us  to  Him  and  it,  is,  accord- 
ing to  St.  Paul,  the  divinely  significant  truth  of  Baptism. 
Baptism  is  an  act  of  God  relating  us  to  Christ  and  to 
Christ's  redemptive  act.  It  not  only  makes  us  one 
with  Him,  but  it  makes  His  death  to  sin  our  death  to 
sin  and  His  life  to  God  our  life  to  God.  This,  one 
might  say,  is  only  representative.  But  God  never 
merely  represents;  His  representation  is  always  at  the 
very  least  potential  of  reality;  and  in  this  case  all  it 
wants  and  awaits  is  our  realization  through  faith  to 
make  it  reality  in  ourselves.  St.  Paul  knows  himself 
after  his   baptism  only  in  Christ;  but  he  knows  no 


The  Mind  of  the  Spirit  251 

Christ  but  Him  crucified,  —  Christ's  death  not  only 
the  representation  but  the  power  and  the  reality  of 
his  own  death  to  sin,  as  Christ's  life  is  of  his  own  risen 
life  to  God.  The  substance  of  Christianity  is  indeed 
to  realize  our  baptism. 

The  mind  of  the  spirit  cannot  but  recognize  two 
senses,  or  at  any  rate  two  widely  separated  stages  of 
meaning,  in  that  word  to  realize.  In  its  entirety,  and 
in  its  fulness  of  meaning  even  here,  it  means  to  bring 
to  reality  or  to  make  real.  What  a  truth  it  is  that 
we  realize  ourselves,  accomplish  our  end  and  destiny, 
in  Jesus  Christ!  What  a  meaning  it  gives  to  faith  to 
know  that  there  is  positively  no  limit  to  its  function 
and  power  to  realize  or  actualize  God's  Word  to  us; 
that  God's  Word  to  us,  which  is  Christ  Himself,  is  not 
only  as  full  of  meaning,  but  as  full  of  power,  and  not 
only  as  full  of  power  or  potentiality,  but  as  full  of 
actuality  or  reality  to  us  and  in  us,  as  our  faith  will 
make  it,  or  will  suffer  it  to  be!  It  is  literally  true  that 
in  the  things  and  life  of  the  spirit  it  is  with  us  precisely 
and  exactly  according  to  our  faith.  Our  faith  is  the 
measure  of  ourselves.  There  would  be  no  impossibility 
in  an  instantaneous  sanctification  or  even  glorification, 
if  there  were  none  in  an  instantaneous  perfection  of 
faith.  But  faith  like  every  other  human  faculty  is  a 
thing  of  growth  and  progress.  We  might  be  made  like 
Christ  in  a  moment,  if  we  could  know  Christ  in  a 
moment  or  a  day.  But  to  know  Christ  is  to  know  our- 
selves and  sin,  and  God  and  holiness.  To  realize,  then, 
our  baptism  in  the  fullest  sense  would  be  to  bring  to 


252     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

reality  through  faith  all  God*s  grace  to  us  in  Christ, 
not  only  a  representative  or  potential  but  an  actual 
and  completed  death  to  sin  and  life  to  God;  nothing 
less  than  that  can  be  the  meaning  and  end  of  all  true 
repentance  and  faith.  But  seeing,  in  the  thing  itself 
and  in  ourselves,  the  impossibility  of  such  an  imme- 
diate realization  of  God's  gift  of  life  in  Jesus  Christ, 
we  fall  back  necessarily  upon  a  lower  form  of  realiza- 
tion, a  realization,  as  I  have  expressed  it,  not  in  the 
attainment  of  fact  but  in  the  proleptic  appropriation  of 
faith. 

To  know  oneself  is  not  necessarily  to  know  oneself 
unto  perfection.  There  is  none  of  us  who  does  not 
know  himself,  as  himself,  although  the  best  of  us 
knows  but  little  of  his  whole  self.  So  any  one  of  us 
may  not  only  know  his  life  in  Christ,  but  may  know 
that  his  life  is  complete  in  Christ,  although  as  yet  he 
may  know  very  little  of  all  that  is  to  be  known  of  either 
Christ  or  himself.  It  is  not  a  spiritual  impossibility, 
or  even  difficulty,  to  know  this  much;  that  the  change 
from  spiritual  death  to  spiritual  life  has  got  to  take 
place  in  ourselves  and  to  be  an  act  of  ourselves;  that 
it  has  to  be  an  attitude  on  our  part  towards  sin  whose 
meaning  and  end  can  be  nothing  less  than  a  death  of 
sin  to  ourselves  or  of  ourselves  to  sin,  or  on  the  positive 
side  an  attitude  towards  God  and  holiness  whose  only 
end  can  be  the  life  of  holiness  in  ourselves;  that  that  is 
just  precisely  what  Jesus  Christ  not  only  means  but  is; 
and  that  Jesus  Christ  is  not  only  God's  revelation  to 
us  but  God's  realization  in  us  of  all  that  He  is  in  Him- 


The  Mind  of  the  Spirit  253 

self.  What  do  we  mean  when  we  say  that  repentance 
and  remission  of  sin  are  preached  to  us  in  His  name, 
or  in  Him?  Is  it  not,  that  we  see  in  Him  a  divine 
grace  and  power  of  repentance  unto  the  death  to  sin, 
and  of  faith  unto  the  Hfe  of  holiness?  What  do  we 
mean  when  we  speak  of  Him  as  the  Baptizer  with  the 
Holy  Ghost?  Is  it  not  that  we  are  baptized  in  Him 
with  a  divine  grace  and  power  to  die  His  death  to  sin 
and  hve  His  life  to  holiness  and  God  ?  What  though 
an  eternity  may  be  profitably  occupied  with  bringing 
this  truth  to  its  full  reality,  to  being  perfect  as  our 
Father  in  heaven  is  perfect,  to  knowing  Christ  as  He 
is  and  being  made  like  Him,  —  what  we  may  be  thus 
forever  realizing  in  fact  may  we  not  at  once  realize  in 
at  least  implicit  and  ever  unfolding  thought,  in  a  faith 
that  shall  be  forever  shining  brighter  and  brighter  unto 
the  perfect  day?  It  is  this  forereaching  power  of 
faith,  to  see  the  end  already  in  the  beginning  and  to 
possess  the  gift  in  the  promise,  that  religion  makes 
such  valuable  use  of.  What  if  we  had  to  wait  for  the 
possession  and  enjoyment  of  its  gifts  until  the  end! 
On  the  contrary  it  is  only  through  foreknowledge  and 
desire  and  pursuit  and  assured  confidence  and  ultimate 
attainment  of  it,  in  other  words  it  is  only  as  it  has 
been  from  the  beginning  an  end  of  faith  and  hope, 
that  the  end  itself  can  become  to  us  at  last  one  of 
actual  realization  in  fact.  So  it  is  that  our  present 
spiritual  status  is  one  of  faith  and  hope,  and  that  not 
alone  our  justification,  or  perfect  acceptance  in  Christ 
for  all  He  is,  but  everything  that  is  to  be  ours  in  fact 


254     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

in  Christ  is  already  ours  in  faith  in  Him;  and  in  the 
confident  faith  of  man  as  in  the  assured  grace  of  God, 
whatever  may  be  predicated  as  true  of  him  is  predicable 
as  though  true  of  us.  God's  Word  to  faith  and  God's 
Spirit  working  in  and  through  faith  will  as  assuredly 
fulfil  themselves  in  the  realm  of  spirit,  as  when  in  that  of 
nature  God  said.  Let  there  be  light,  and  there  was  light. 
The  mind  of  the  spirit  rests  upon  an  objective  fact, 
upon  an  act  of  life  which  has  been  accomplished  before 
it  and  for  it,  and  which  carries  in  it  not  only  the  full 
meaning  but  the  efficient  potentiality  and  the  ultimate 
realization  and  reality  of  its  own  actual  life  in  God. 
The  relation  of  the  human  spirit  to  that  act  of  life  in 
Christ  is  one  primarily  of  faith.  It  is  the  pri^dlege 
and  province  of  faith  to  see  in  Christ  God  revealed  in 
the  Hfe  of  man  and  man  reaHzed  in  the  life  of  God. 
There  is  nothing  that  can  intervene  between  the  spirit 
and  that  fact,  except  the  spirit's  own  want  of  faith  in 
it.  Where  the  faith  exists,  nothing  separates  it  in 
degree  or  in  time  even  from  the  completeness  of  the 
fact  but  its  own  finite  limitation  and  its  need  of  growth 
from  finitude  to  infinity.  But  faith  is  already  fact, 
where  it  rests  upon  fact  however  at  present  above  and 
beyond  it.  We  are  partakers  with  Christ,  we  are 
partakers  of  Christ,  if  we  hold  the  beginning  of  our 
hope  steadfast  unto  the  end.  But  the  mind  of  the 
spirit  is  no  mere  quiescent  or  acquiescent  state;  it  is 
no  resting  still  and  satisfied  in  a  condition  of  objective 
salvation,  a  salvation  for  or  instead  of  its  own.  It  is 
the  highest  energy  or  activity  of  the  spirit  itself.     It  is, 


The  Mind  of  the  Spirit  255 

as  the  Apostle  describes  it,  the  actual  working  within 
us  of  the  law  of  the  Spirit  of  life,  or  of  the  law  of  the 
life  of  the  spirit.  Life  is  the  busiest  and  most  active 
thing  in  the  world,  and  the  life  of  God  in  the  spirit  of 
man  has  a  great  and  endless  task  before  it,  —  nothing 
less  than  to  know  Christ  and  be  like  Him,  perfect  as 
God  Himself  is  perfect. 

However  inchoate  and  imperfect  the  present  life  of 
the  spirit,  it  is  already  not  only  life  but  peace,  when  it 
knows  that  it  is  working  straight  along  the  lines  as 
well  of  the  perfect  truth  of  itself  as  of  the  eternal  truth 
of  God.  Faith,  as  we  have  seen,  is  then  indeed  the 
greatest  power  when  it  rests  in  that  which  is  itself  the 
greatest  power  to  the  truest  ends  of  life.  And  not  only 
such  a  power  but  the  only  such  power  is  the  power  of 
God  working  through  human  faith  unto  human  salva- 
tion. And  human  salvation  is  nothing  else  or  less  than 
living  the  hfe  of  God  and  working  the  work  of  God. 
It  may  be  very  pertinently  asked,  What  is  the  Hfe  of 
the  spirit  here  apart  from  the  life  of  the  flesh  ?  —  using 
the  flesh,  as  I  think  we  may,  not  in  its  acquired  bad 
sense,  but  as  St.  Paul  himself,  for  example,  uses  it 
when  he  says,  The  life  I  now  live  in  the  flesh  I  live  in 
the  faith  of  the  Son  of  God  who  loved  me  and  gave 
Himself  for  me.  I  think  we  may  illustrate  how  we 
may  live  the  life  of  the  spirit  without  withdra\Nang  from 
the  flesh,  or  from  the  world,  in  their  truer  and  normal 
sense,  or  without  taking  refuge  in  so-called  other- 
worldliness.  Is  there  anything  overstrained  in  our 
Lord's  demand  that  in  all  things  we  shall  seek  first 


256     Tlie  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

God's  kingdom  and  righteousness,  and  in  His  promise 
that  then  all  things  else  shall  be  added  to  us  ?  There 
are  in  every  act  in  the  flesh  or  in  the  world,  in  their 
indifferent  or  colorless  sense,  two  parts  —  the  act  itself 
and  the  spirit  of  the  act,  or  what  the  act  is  and  what 
the  man  is  in  the  act.  Now  surely  no  one  will  deny 
that  in  any  act  or  human  activity  the  important  thing 
is  the  man  himself,  or  what  spirit,  or  spiritual  quality 
and  character,  he  is  of.  Can  any  other  greatness  or 
success  in  the  act  really  compensate  for  its  not  being 
a  right  act,  or  for  the  man  being  unrighteous  in  it? 
So  far  from  life  in  the  spirit,  while  we  are  where  and 
as  we  are,  meaning  a  life  of  abstraction  from  hfe  in 
the  flesh  and  in  the  world,  I  hold  that  any  such  life 
is  for  us  as  inconceivable  as  it  is  impossible.  Life  in 
the  spirit  means  abstraction  from  the  flesh  and  the 
world  precisely  in  the  sense  and  in  the  degree  in  which 
these  are  actually  sinful,  or  are  contradictory  of  the 
real  and  true  life  of  the  spirit  or  of  the  man  himself. 
To  go  yet  further,  I  have  contended  that  as  we  are 
constituted  and  placed  in  the  world  our  holiness  or 
divine  life  are  as  much  conditioned  by  one  actual  atti- 
tude, as  our  sin  and  spiritual  death  consist  in  another 
and  the  opposite  attitude,  towards  the  flesh  and  the 
world  as  they  are.  In  other  words,  so  far  as  our  ex- 
perience and  knowledge  can  yet  go,  our  present  rela- 
tion to  the  flesh  and  the  world  is  as  necessary  to  our 
holiness  or  our  life  of  the  spirit,  as  it  is  the  cause  or 
occasion  of  our  sinfulness  or  our  indulgence  in  the 
lusts  of  the  flesh. 


The  Mind  of  the  Spirit  257 

How  life  in  the  spirit  is  in  itself  Kfe  and  peace  will 
perhaps  better  appear  if  we  consider  how  life  in  the 
flesh  is  in  itself  death.  That  life  in  the  flesh  is  sin 
does  not  mean  that  the  flesh  in  itself  is  sinful.  This 
may  be  made  clear  by  an  analogy.  Men  of  modern 
scientific  mind  speak  of  what  we  have  called  original 
sin  as  "our  brute  inheritance."  Accepting,  for  the 
sake  of  illustration,  the  phrase  and  what  it  denotes,  — 
what  of  brute  or  animal  nature  man  inherits  as  the 
raw  material  of  his  earthly  life  is  not  in  itself  evil. 
On  the  contrary,  it  is  quite  the  proper  stuff  out  of 
which  to  make  himself  or  his  manhood.  Whether  one 
makes  a  man  or  a  beast  of  himself  depends  upon  the 
use  he  makes  of  identically  the  same  material.  Just 
the  same  appetites,  desires,  affections,  and  passions 
which  controlled  by  freedom  and  conformed  to  reason 
make  the  man  and  invest  him  with  all  his  virtues,  not 
so  controlled  and  conformed  keep  him  back  in  the 
life  of  his  brute  ancestry  and  constitute  what  we  call 
his  bestiality.  Our  vice  does  not  consist  in  the  fact 
that  we  are  first  animals,  but  in  the  fact  that  we  do 
not  become  afterwards  men.  Virtue  consists  in  the 
addition  or  application  of  reason  and  freedom  to  the 
life  and  activities  of  the  animal  nature.  Quite  in 
analogy  with  this,  Christianity  stands  to  us  for  a  yet 
higher  reach  or  stage  of  human  life.  As  our  natural 
manhood  consists  in  our  no  longer  living  in  or  according 
to  our  lower  animal  nature  but  in  or  in  accordance 
with  the  higher  human  endowment  of  reason  and  free 
will,  so  the  spiritual  manhood  imparted  to  us  in  Jesus 


258     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

Christ  consists  in  our  no  longer  living  in  ourselves,  in 
our  natural  or  mere  human  power,  but  in  the  com- 
pleteness of  personal  oneness  with  God  into  which  in 
Christ  we  are  admitted.  The  natural  manhood  which 
we  thus  renounce  for  the  spiritual  one  is  no  more  sinful 
in  itself  or  in  its  order  than  the  animal  nature  that 
preceded  it.  We  do  not  say  that  the  flesh,  in  the 
sense  of  our  natural  manhood,  is  sinful,  but  only  that 
no  man  can  in  the  flesh  be  sinless.  However  blameless 
an  animal  is  in  doing  so,  the  man  who  abides  in  his 
animal  nature  cannot  be  other  than  a  vicious  being; 
and  however  necessary  and  high  a  thing  man  may  be 
in  himself  and  in  the  exercise  of  his  human  endowments 
and  powers,  the  man  who  remains  in  these  and  will 
not  go  up  higher  into  personal  union  and  alliance  with 
the  divine  and  universal  Source  of  all  holiness,  right- 
eousness, and  eternal  life,  condemns  himself  to  live  in 
a  lower  world  of  sin  and  death.  The  mind  of  the 
flesh  is  death,  for  the  simple  reason  that  the  things 
that  make  for  and  that  constitute  life  are  not  in  or  of 
or  by  the  flesh  but  come  from  beyond  or  above  it. 
The  soul  that  knows  nothing  of  faith  or  prayer  or 
grace,  of  that  union  and  communion  with  God  which 
becomes  visible  to  us  and  participable  by  us  in  Christ, 
of  the  holiness  which  is  God's  own  Spirit  and  nature 
and  breath  of  life  in  us,  —  knows  not  all  that  of  which, 
as  the  knowing  is  in  itself  life  and  peace,  so  the  not 
knowing  is  of  itself  sin  and  death.  To  know  God  is 
the  only  real  life  as  to  serve  Him  is  the  only  true  free- 
dom. 


XIX 

THE    REDEMPTION    OF   THE 
BODY 


And  if  Christ  is  in  you,  the  body  is  dead  because  of  sin;  but  the 
spirit  is  life  because  of  righteousness.  But  if  the  Spirit  of  Him  that 
raised  up  Jesus  from  the  dead  dwelleth  in  you,  He  that  raised  up 
Christ  Jesus  from  the  dead  shall  quicken  also  your  mortal  bodies 
through  His  Spirit  that  dwelleth  in  you. 

So  then,  brethren,  we  are  debtors,  not  to  the  flesh,  to  live  after  the 
flesh:  for  if  ye  Uve  after  the  flesh,  ye  must  die;  but  if  by  the  spirit  ye 
mortify  the  deeds  of  the  body,  ye  shall  live.  For  as  many  as  are  led 
by  the  Spirit  of  God,  these  are  sons  of  God.  For  ye  received  not 
the  spirit  of  bondage  again  unto  fear;  but  ye  received  the  spirit  of 
adoption,  whereby  we  cry,  Abba,  Father.  The  Spirit  Himself 
beareth  witness  with  our  spirit,  that  we  are  children  of  God :  and  if 
children,  then  heirs;  heirs  of  God,  and  joint-heirs  with  Christ;  if 
so  be  that  we  suffer  with  Him,  that  we  may  be  also  glorified  with 
Him. 

For  I  reckon  that  the  sufferings  of  this  present  time  are  not  worthy 
to  be  compared  with  the  glory  that  shall  be  revealed  to  usward.  For 
the  earnest  expectation  of  the  creation  waiteth  for  the  revealing  of 
the  sons  of  God.  For  the  creation  was  subjected  to  vanity,  not  of 
its  own  will,  but  by  reason  of  him  who  subjected  it,  in  hope  that  the 
creation  itself  also  shall  be  delivered  from  the  bondage  of  corruption 
into  the  liberty  of  the  glory  of  the  children  of  God.  For  we  know 
that  the  whole  creation  groaneth  and  travaileth  in  pain  together  until 
now.  And  not  only  so,  but  ourselves  also,  which  have  the  first  fruits 
of  the  Spirit,  even  we  ourselves  groan  within  ourselves,  waiting  for 
our  adoption,  to  wit,  the  redemption  of  our  body.  —  Romans  VIII. 
10-23. 


XIX 


THE    REDEMPTION   OF   THE    BODY 

The  Apostle  begins  a  discussion  in  which  the  body- 
is  the  leading  subject  with  the  words.  If  Christ  is  in 
you,  the  body  is  dead  because  of  sin,  but  the  spirit  is 
life  because  of  righteousness ;  and  ends  it  thus.  We  who 
have  the  first-fruits  of  the  Spirit,  even  we  ourselves 
groan  within  ourselves,  waiting  for  our  adoption  (the 
consummation  of  our  sonship),  to  wit,  the  redemption 
of  our  body. 

However  real  and  thorough  one's  spiritual  appre- 
hension and  acceptance  of  Jesus  Christ,  however  com- 
plete one*s  spiritual  self-identification  with  Christ,  the 
new  divine  life  of  the  spirit  is  not  ipso  facto  or  at  once 
communicated  to  and  made  that  of  the  body.  A  man 
may  be  full  of  an  initial  faith,  hope,  and  love,  which 
are  the  signs  and  activities  of  the  Spirit  of  God  and 
of  the  new  life  of  his  own  spiritual  self;  he  may  have 
so  appropriated  to  himself  the  righteousness  of  God 
in  Jesus  Christ  as  to  be  before  God  justified  through 
Him;  and  still  he  not  only  may  but  will  long  be  aware 
that  the  new  life  of  his  spirit  is  very  far  as  yet  from 
being  correspondingly  the  life  of  his  body.  On  the 
contrary,  he  will,  and  the  more  in  proportion  to  his 

261 


262     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

earnestness  and  sincerity,  discover  to  his  cost  that 
however  the  spirit  in  him  may  be  Hfe  because  of  right- 
eousness (because  as  yet  of  the  righteousness  of  Christ, 
not  his  own),  the  body  in  him  is  still  dead  because  of 
sin.  But,  the  Apostle  goes  on  to  say,  if  the  Spirit  of 
Him  that  raised  up  Jesus  from  the  dead  dwelleth  in 
you.  He  that  raised  up  Christ  Jesus  from  the  dead 
shall  quicken  also  your  mortal  bodies  through  His 
Spirit  that  dwelleth  in  you.  We  cannot  exclude  from 
the  ultimate  operation  of  this  promise  the  physical 
resurrection  of  our  bodies  in  a  future  life;  but  the 
promise  has  a  much  more  immediate  application  than 
that  to  the  spiritual  business  of  our  life  now  and  here. 
Taken  in  its  narrower  bearing  within  ourselves  it  is  a 
promise  to  the  natural  in  us  too  that  it  shall  be  taken 
up  into  the  glory  of  the  spiritual.  And  taken  in  its 
wider  sweep  of  prophecy  it  means  that  the  whole 
natural  order  of  which  man  is  the  head,  in  what  we 
call  Adam,  was  predestined  and  is  destined  to  be 
taken  up  and  included  in  the  higher  spiritual  order  of 
which  man  is  still  the  head  in  Christ. 

With  regard  to  the  narrower  view  indicated  above, 
or  the  assurance  that  if  Christ  is  in  us  spiritually  He 
will  also  be  in  us  naturally,  or  in  other  words  that  He 
who  has  given  us  spiritual  life  in  Christ  will  also 
quicken  us  into  natural  or  bodily  life  in  Him,  it  is  to  be 
observed  that  the  agent  in  both  these  acts  or  opera- 
tions is  the  Spirit  of  God  and  of  Christ.  This  would 
seem  to  indicate  that  the  promise  to  the  body  is,  pri- 
marily at  least,  not  that  of  mere  physical  continuance 


The  Redemption  of  the  Body         263 

of  life  after  death  but  that  of  spiritual  participation, 
here  and  more  perfectly  there,  in  the  higher  life  of  the 
spirit.  In  other  words,  the  promise  is  that  the  life  of 
God  revealed  and  communicated  to  us  in  Christ,  into 
which  the  spirit  of  man  may  enter  at  once  through 
faith  and  hope,  or  what  we  call  justification,  shall  by 
another  and  slower  process,  which  we  shall  have  to 
describe  as  sanctification,  become  the  life  of  the  body 
also.  And  the  body  thus  sanctified  or  spiritualized 
will  be  the  spiritual  body,  —  any  physical  change  or 
progress  to  ensue  in  "the  body  that  shall  be"  being 
intimately  associated  with  the  spiritual  change  that 
has  preceded  and  induced  it. 

There  is  an  older  analogy  which  may  assist  our 
understanding  of  the  process  just  described.  There 
is  nothing  of  rationality  or  of  morality  in  itself  in  our 
animal  nature,  and  yet  by  the  exercise  in  it  and  upon 
it  of  the  higher  human  reason  and  freedom  the  animal 
nature  may  be  rationalized  and  moralized.  According 
to  Aristotle  the  reason  and  the  free  personal  will  are 
or  constitute  the  man,  as  such,  or  as  differentiated  from 
his  lower,  vegetable  and  animal,  natures.  There  is  a 
pure  or  intellectual,  dianoetic,  virtue  of  the  reason 
itself  —  the  rational  faculty,  by  means  of  which  we 
see  and  know  things  as  they  are  and  as  they  ought  to 
be  —  and  this  pure  virtue  of  the  reason  we  may  call 
Wisdom.  But  there  is  another,  practical  or  applied, 
virtue  which  does  not  reside  in  the  reason  itself,  al- 
though that  is  its  origin  and  source,  but  within  the 
animal  appetites,  desires,   and  passions,  to  which  it 


264     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

has  been  communicated  by  discipline  and  habit.  So 
that  in  the  truly  virtuous  man  not  only  is  the  reason 
itself  a  right  reason,  and  the  will  a  strong  and  free  will, 
but  the  very  animal  nature  itself  has  become,  as  I  said, 
rationalized  and  moralized,  or  made  virtuous.  Such 
a  man  has  not  by  the  continuous  exercise  of  his  reason 
and  will  to  make  or  keep  himself  moral  or  virtuous. 
The  animal  in  him  has  itself  become  so,  and  is  so  of 
itself.  And  that  process  is  the  making  of  the  man. 
The  animal  nature  is  the  stuff  or  material  out  of  which 
in  the  exercise  of  his  personal  endowments  of  reason 
and  freedom  he  constructs  himself,  he  molds  and 
shapes  his  life,  his  character,  his  destiny. 

Let  us  apply  a  similar  reasoning  to  the  matter  before 
us.  As  it  is  the  function  of  the  reason  to  rationalize 
or  moralize  the  animal  in  us,  so  is  it  the  function  of 
the  spirit  to  spiritualize  or  sanctify  the  natural  in  us. 
The  right  reason  or  wise  man  sees  and  knows  things 
as  they  are  and  ought  to  be,  but  the  man  is  actually 
rational  or  wise  only  as  he  has  impressed  his  reason 
or  wisdom  upon  the  raw  material  of  his  animal  nature, 
that  is,  upon  his  appetites,  desires,  affections,  and 
passions.  The  reason  is  the  man,  —  but  not  so  long 
as  it  is  with  him  only  the  abstract  or  theoretical  reason. 
It  is  the  man  in  proportion  as  it  has  become  concrete 
and  practical  in  all  his  body,  parts,  and  passions,  for 
apart  from  these  the  man  has  no  real  existence.  The 
meaning  of  the  spiritual  in  us  is  well  expressed  by  the 
poet,  whose  language  we  take  the  liberty  of  extending 
or  generalizing  a  little:  Ourselves  are  ours,  we  know 


The  Redemption  of  the  Body         265 

not  how;  ourselves  are  ours  to  make  them  God's. 
Through  reason  and  freedom  we  become  ourselves 
and  our  own.  Through  the  Spirit  and  our  own 
spirits  we  make  ourselves  and  our  own  —  God's ;  and 
so  make  God  our  own  and  ourselves.  It  is  necessary 
that  we  shall  become  ourselves;  but  it  is  then  no  less 
necessary  that  we  shall  transcend  ourselves,  for  in  fact 
we  never  become  ourselves  until  we  have  grown  up 
from  ourselves  into  oneness  with  God.  The  spirit, 
or  the  spiritual,  in  man  sees  and  apprehends  in  Jesus 
Christ  God  in  himself  and  himself  in  God.  Jesus 
Christ  is  to  him  God  his  righteousness,  God  his  life. 
Yet  more  truly  than  that  the  reason  is  the  man,  may 
we  say  that  the  spirit  of  the  man  is  the  man;  the  reason 
is  the  man  in  himself,  the  spirit  is  the  man  in  God. 
What  the  spirit  of  the  man  is,  the  man  is;  and  when 
the  man  in  spirit,  or  in  faith,  truly  sees  and  knows 
himself  in  Christ,  God  sees  and  knows  him  in  Christ. 
But  a  mere  ideal  or  theoretical  faith  or  being  in  Christ 
goes  no  further  than  a  mere  intellectual  wisdom  or 
pure  reason.  It  is  only  applied  faith,  as  it  is  only 
applied  reason,  that  is  of  any  practical  account.  The 
faith  that  holds  Christ  in  itself  but  cannot  impart  or 
impress  Christ  to  and  upon  the  nature  and  the  life  is 
not  a  real  faith.  And  what  is  the  nature  or  the  life 
of  man.?  Is  it  not  all  the  animal  and  the  natural  or 
what  St.  Paul  calls  the  psychical  in  him?  We  know 
nothing  of  a  purely  or  abstractly  spiritual  manhood. 
The  spiritual  man  is  a  spiritual  man,  not  a  spiritual 
something  else.     He  is  a  man  whose  manhood,  whose 


266     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

animal  and  human  constitution  and  nature,  have 
become  spiritualized  by  the  indwelling  and  sanctifying 
Spirit  of  God  and  of  Christ,  and  in  them  of  ourselves. 
If  God  in  Christ  is  truly  in  our  faith,  and  so  in  our 
spirit,  then  He  will  be  in  our  bodies  and  in  all  the 
motions  and  activities  of  our  natural  lives.  It  is  not 
in  being  holy  outside  and  apart  from  our  bodies  and 
bodily  lives  that  we  are  spiritual  men;  it  is  only  by 
becoming  holy  in  and  through  these  that  we  act  by 
act  and  step  by  step  become  spiritual  men.  Our 
bodies,  parts,  and  passions  are  still  the  stuff  out  of 
which  we  shape  and  fashion  ourselves.  Saints  and 
sinners  are  made,  by  opposite  processes,  out  of  the 
same  material.  Whatever  our  future  bodies  are  to  be, 
the  part  which  the  Holy  Spirit  has  to  perform  in 
determining  them  takes  place  largely  here,  and  it 
consists  in  the  daily  discipline  of  spiritualizing  our 
natural  affections,  our  bodily  lives,  our  earthly  and 
human  selves.  We  look  for  a  Saviour,  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  who  shall  fashion  anew  the  body  of  our  humilia- 
tion, that  it  may  be  conformed  to  the  body  of  His 
glory,  according  to  the  working  whereby  He  is  able  to 
subject  all  things  unto  Himself.  But  the  fashioning 
anew  of  our  bodies  into  the  likeness  of  His  is  not  a 
future  act  of  physical  new-creation,  but  an  ever  present 
act  of  spiritual  new-creation. 

We  are  at  once  then,  psychical  or  natural  men  and 
spiritual  men  —  just  as  we  are  at  the  same  time  both 
animal  and  rational  men,  however  the  two  may  pull 
apart  in  us  —  and  the  function  of  the  spiritual  is  not 


The  Redemption  of  the  Body         267 

to  sever  itself  by  scission  from  the  natural  but  to 
subdue  the  natural  to  itself  and  take  it  up  into  its 
own  higher  activities  and  life.  Our  bodies,  too,  are 
members  of  Christ  and  temples  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 
The  business  of  human  life  is  to  compose  the  strifes 
which  are  not  only  incident  to  it  but  are  determinative 
and  constitutive  of  it.  Whether  a  man  shall  be  animal, 
or  rational  and  free  and  human;  whether  a  man  will 
be  natural  and  earthly  and  of  himself  only,  or  spiritual, 
of  God,  and  divine  also,  —  these  are  not  merely  ques- 
tions, they  are  the  essential  and  determining  issues  of 
human  nature,  life,  and  destiny.  Man  is  made  to  be 
ever  going  up  higher,  taking  with  him  his  whole  self 
and  leaving  behind  only  the  temporary,  the  accidental, 
the  incomplete,  abnormal,  or  sinful.  The  natural,  the 
body,  in  a  true  sense  the  flesh,  are  part  of  us,  and  the 
sin  in  them  consists  only  in  their  non-subjection  to 
the  spirit.  There  is  no  spiritual  step,  no  new  breath  of 
the  Spirit,  no  participation  of  the  life  of  God,  no  access 
of  holiness,  no  act  or  attainment  of  divine  righteousness, 
that  does  not  require  and  exact  of  us  some  submission 
or  sacrifice  of  the  body,  the  flesh,  our  natural  selves. 
This  must  needs  be  so,  for  the  reason  already  given: 
As  sin  consists  for  us  only  in  yielding  to  the  lusts  of 
our  fleshly  natures  or  the  desires  of  our  earthly  selves, 
so  holiness  or  spirituality  originates  or  exists  or  acts 
for  us  at  all  only  in  subduing  these  lower  passions  in 
the  interest  of  higher  and  holier  affections.  There  is 
literally  no  rising  for  us  into  our  higher  selves  except 
over  the  bodies  of  our  dead  lower  selves. 


268     Tlie  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

The  question  with  any  man  is  not  whether  the  spirit- 
ual and  the  natural  man  do  not  coexist  and  strive  for 
the  mastery  in  him,  but  only  this,  which  part  he  him- 
self is  of  in  the  strife.  Of  many,  let  us  hope,  there  is 
no  doubt  of  their  being  on  the  right  side.  God  knoweth 
them  that  are  His,  and  we  are  encouraged  to  believe 
knows  many  more  than  are  visible  to  us.  Of  many, 
alas,  there  is  too  much  doubt,  or  too  little  doubt,  on 
the  wrong  side.  There  can  be  no  question  but  that 
in  the  inevitable  issues  that  so  vitally  determine  our 
very  selves  a  man  must  be  definitely  of  one  part  or  the 
other.  If  we  are  in  doubt,  God  knows,  and  as  it  is 
with  us  so  it  cannot  but  be  for  us;  we  are  the  deter- 
miners of  ourselves  and  our  destinies.  To  be  on  the 
one  side  or  the  other  of  that  question  is  to  be  in  the 
flesh  or  in  the  spirit.  If  we  are  in  the  flesh  or  are  living 
according  to  the  flesh,  we  are,  the  Apostle  says,  going  to 
die,  —  because  the  life  he  speaks  of  is  only  in  the 
spirit  and  through  the  Spirit  of  God.  If,  on  the  con- 
trary, we  are,  in  the  spirit  and  by  the  Spirit  of  God, 
subduing  the  flesh  or  the  body,  and  when  necessary 
mortifying  its  evil  deeds  and  extirpating  its  sinful  lusts, 
then  we  shall  live,  —  because  it  is  in  just  such  victories 
of  our  higher  over  our  lower  selves  that  our  hfe  affirms 
and  accomplishes  itself. 

To  be  ever  so  little  in  the  spirit  must  mean  to  be  all. 
If  it  does  so  mean,  then  in  God's  sight  it  is  all.  The 
least  of  the  Spirit  of  God  in  us  is  earnest  and  pledge 
of  the  whole.  The  first  word  of  the  Spirit  to  us  is 
assurance  of  the  fact  of  our  sonship  to  God:  The 


The  Redemption  of  the  Body         269 

Spirit  beareth  witness  with  our  Spirit  that  we  are 
children  of  God.  The  earhest  consciousness  and  utter- 
ance of  that  fact  is  properly  an  infantile  one  —  a  cry  — 
Abba,  Father!  Thank  God,  we  have  not  to  wait  to 
know  all  it  is  going  to  mean  and  to  involve  to  be  son 
of  God  in  the  end  in  order  to  be  already  sons  of  God 
in  the  very  beginning.  It  is  through  being  sons  of 
God  that  we  are  enabled  to  become  sons  of  God;  if, 
on  the  contrary,  we  had  to  become  in  order  to  be,  we 
should  never  be  sons  of  God.  For  it  is  a  far  and  a 
long  cry  from  the  Abba,  Father  of  our  infancy  in 
Christ  to  our  maturity  in  Him,  from  the  small  begin- 
ning of  our  faith  to  the  final  attainment  of  our  fruition. 
But  if  we  are  children,  we  shall  be  heirs.  All  that  we 
are  in  faith  only  we  shall  be  no  less  in  fact  also.  All 
that  sonship  now  only  means  to  us  it  shall  completely 
be  to  us.  The  inheritance  which  now  is  Christ's  only, 
but  shall  be  no  less  ours  also  when  we  shall  have  learned 
to  know  Him  as  He  is  and  been  made  like  Him,  —  it  is 
no  mere  participation  in  any  outward  state  or  condition, 
it  is  no  physical  transformation  wrought  from  without  in 
ourselves  or  our  environment;  it  is  what  we  ourselves 
shall  be  when  Christ  shall  be  no  longer  faith  to  us  but 
fact  in  us,  when  God  shall  have  wrought  in  us  what  He 
has  wrought  in  Him  —  in  Him  as  only  the  first-fruits  of 
ourselves,  the  first-begotten  from  the  dead,  our  forerun- 
ner and  leader.  For  observe  carefully  the  condition  upon 
which  we  shall  inherit:  If  children,  then  heirs;  heirs  of 
God  and  joint-heirs  with  Christ:  if  so  be  that  we  suffer 
with  Him,  that  we  may  be  also  glorified  with  Him. 


270     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

As  to  the  sujfferings  with  Christ  which  are  not  only 
the  conditions  but  the  means  of  our  being  glorified 
with  Him,  we  are  to  remember  that  it  is  only  in  the 
light  of  our  Lord's  own  sufferings,  and  of  the  new 
meaning  and  virtue  He  gives  them,  that  they  are 
spoken  of  as  they  are  in  the  Gospel.  As  the  sufferings 
of  Christ  abound  unto  us,  even  so  our  comfort  also 
aboundeth  through  Christ.  Sufferings  are  not  in  them- 
selves, and  by  no  means  to  all,  means  of  exaltation. 
Only  in  one  way  or  event  do  they  become  or  are  they 
made  so,  —  when  they  are  used  by  God  and  received 
by  ourselves  in  the  direct  line  of  their  final  cause  or 
purpose.  The  diflScult  or  painful  or  variously  trying 
experiences  inseparable  from  human  life  are  the  sole 
conceivable,  if  not  the  sole  possible,  means  of  deter- 
mining as  well  as  of  testing  or  proving  the  personal  or 
spiritual  quality  of  human  life.  As  has  been  more 
than  once  said,  so  far  as  our  own  spiritual  characters 
are  concerned,  as  touching  the  vital  issues  of  vice  or 
virtue,  sin  or  holiness,  the  conditions  of  one  are  identi- 
cally those  of  the  other.  Virtue  and  vice,  or  holiness 
and  sin,  are  opposite  attitudes  and  actions  towards  the 
same  things,  and  it  is  only  in  relation  with  the  things 
which  occasion  them  that,  for  us  at  least,  they  can 
originate  or  exist.  If  there  were  no  occasion  for 
cowardice  there  would  be  none  for  courage,  and  there 
could  be  no  courage.  If  there  were  no  powerful 
temptation  to  sin  there  would  be  no  powerful  incentive 
to  hoHness,  and  we  should  not  know  what  holiness 
means.     To  Christ,  and  to  the  spiritual  man,  all  the 


The  Redemption  of  the  Body         271 

experiences  of  life,  so  far  as  they  are  trials  at  all,  are 
simply  parts  of  the  one  question  of  sin  or  holiness, 
which  is  the  question  of  life  or  death.  The  so-called 
mystery  of  evil  precisely  as  it  is  in  the  world  is  the 
only  solution,  because  it  is  the  necessary  condition,  of 
all  the  true  good  of  the  world.  For  good,  spiritual, 
moral,  or  personal,  is  the  overcoming  of  evil.  We  shall 
not  know  Jesus  Christ  or  ourselves,  until  we  learn  for 
ourselves  that  all  the  comfort  of  life,  all  its  strength, 
victory,  and  blessedness,  comes  only  through  the 
sufferings  of  Christ. 

The  sufferings  of  this  present  time  are  indeed  not 
worthy  to  be  compared  with  the  glory  that  shall  be 
revealed.  The  affliction  seems  light  and  but  for  a 
moment  which  is  working  for  us  more  and  more 
exceedingly  an  eternal  weight  of  glory.  But  this  is  so 
only  as,  with  our  Lord,  we  are  looking  not  at  the  things 
that  are  seen,  but  at  things  that  are  not  seen.  That 
is  to  say,  as  we  are  seeing  deep  into  the  meaning  and 
looking  far  to  the  end  of  human  experience.  For  — 
the  Apostle  goes  on  to  say  —  the  earnest  expectation  of 
the  creation  waiteth  for  the  revealing  of  the  sons  of 
God.  The  creation  here  is  the  natural  creation,  or 
what  we  call  nature,  meaning  primarily  at  least  the 
natural  part  in  ourselves.  We  ourselves,  which  have 
the  first-fruits  of  the  Spirit,  even  we  ourselves  groan 
within  ourselves,  waiting  for  our  adoption,  to  wit,  the 
redemption  of  our  body.  Our  adoption,  meaning  here 
the  completion  or  consummation  of  our  divine  sonship, 
waits  upon  the  final  release  of  the  body  too,  the  admis- 


272     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

sion  of  all  our  natural  selves  into  the  liberty  of  the  holi- 
ness and  life  of  God.  Christ  in  faith,  or  in  the  spiritual 
man,  waits  upon  and  is  only  complete  in  Christ  in 
fruition  or  fact,  in  the  natural  man,  —  meaning  by 
the  natural  man  all  that  is  essential  and  permanent  in 
our  natural  selves,  the  reason  made  right  and  the  will 
become  free,  the  desires  all  purified  and  the  affections 
refined  and  sanctified.  For  I  repeat  that  we  shall  be 
no  longer  ourselves  or  men,  if  to  be  spiritual  means  to 
cease  to  be  natural,  and  is  not  rather  the  spiritualizing 
or  divinizing  and  so  the  glorifying  or  spiritually  per- 
fecting of  the  natural,  which  is  ourselves. 

The  natural  in  us,  our  nature,  became  subject  to 
vanity  not  of  itself  but  through  us,  or  by  our  act.  Sin 
originates  not  in  our  nature,  or  in  our  body,  but  in 
ourselves.  It  is  distinctively  not  a  thing  or  quality  of 
the  nature  but  of  the  person.  But  sin  immediately 
and  deeply  involves  the  nature  or  the  body,  because 
while  it  is  not  of  these  it  is  in  and  through  them.  They 
are  the  sole  means  and  instruments  of  it,  and  reap  the 
corruption  and  curse  of  it.  The  promise  and  the  hope 
is  that  as  the  body  or  nature  was  subjected  to  sin  and 
made  the  instrument  of  it,  not  of  itself  or  its  otvh  will, 
so  by  being  subdued  to  and  made  the  instrument  and 
servant  of  holiness  it  shall  be  delivered  from  the  bond- 
age of  corruption  into  the  liberty  of  the  glory  of  the 
sons  of  God.  That  is  the  burden  of  the  Apostle's 
earnest  exhortation  to  us.  Let  not  sin  therefore  reign 
in  your  mortal  body,  that  ye  should  obey  the  lusts 
thereof;  neither  present  your  members  unto  sin  as 


The  Redemption  of  the  Body         273 

instruments  of  unrighteousness;  but  present  yourselves 
unto  God,  as  alive  from  the  dead,  and  your  members 
as  instruments  of  righteousness  unto  God. 

St.  Paul  would  seem  to  teach  that  what  the  spiritual 
is  to  the  natural  in  ourselves,  spiritual  humanity  is  to 
nature  in  general.  The  whole  natural  order  is  but 
the  body  and  organ  of  a  spiritual  order  which  it  exists 
in  order  to  serve.  Even  what  we  call  natural  evil, 
the  seeming  sin  of  nature,  exists  not  for  itself  but  for 
spiritual  ends  beyond  and  above  itself,  of  which  we 
can  see  enough  to  divine  if  not  always  interpret  the 
rest.  Spiritual  good  would  be  impossible  in  a  world 
in  which  there  was  nothing  of  natural  evil;  that  is,  of 
what  we  call  natural  evil,  for  natural  evil  is  often  the 
truest  spiritual  good,  if  not  the  condition  and  means  of 
all  spiritual  good.  Suppose  that  instead  of  things  as 
they  are,  or  as  they  appear,  there  were  on  the  contrary 
not  only  no  evil  in  fact  but  —  what  one  would  then 
suppose  ought  to  and  would  be  the  case  —  none  in 
semblance.  Would  there  then  be  any  virtue  or  any 
righteousness  .5^  And  if  it  is  answered  that  there  must 
always  be  the  semblance,  if  not  the  possibility  or 
actuality,  of  evil,  —  then  I  say  that  that  semblance  is 
itself  the  evil  and  a  very  real  one. 

But  in  reality  there  is  nothing  evil  but  spiritual  evil, 
but  evil  in  the  spirit  or  in  the  will.  The  whole  world 
of  nature,  of  natural  creation,  becomes  evil  or  good 
with  ourselves.  It  is  all  evil  because  we  are  all  evil, 
and  it  will  become  all  good  when  we  are  all  good. 
As  long  as  we  are  sinners,  it  is  the  condition  and 


274     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

occasion  and  instrument  of  our  sin;  when  we  change 
our  attitude  and  relation  to  it,  it  becomes  not  one 
whit  less  the  condition  and  opportunity  and  instrument 
to  us  of  all  our  holiness  and  righteousness  and  life. 
Let  us  be  indeed  children  of  God,  and  all  nature  and 
the  whole  natural  creation  shall  in  due  time  be  delivered 
from  the  bondage  of  corruption  into  the  liberty  of  the 
glory  of  the  children  of  God. 


XX 

THE   PROCESS    OF   DIVINE 
GRACE 


By  hope  were  we  saved:  but  hope  that  is  seen  is  not  hope:  for  who 
hopeth  for  that  which  he  seeth  ?  But  if  we  hope  for  that  which  we 
see  not,  then  do  we  with  patience  wait  for  it. 

In  like  manner  the  Spirit  also  helpeth  our  infirmity:  for  we  know 
not  how  to  pray  as  we  ought;  but  the  Spirit  himself  maketh  inter- 
cession for  us  with  groanings  which  cannot  be  uttered;  and  He  that 
searcheth  the  hearts  knoweth  what  is  the  mind  of  the  Spirit,  because 
He  maketh  intercession  for  the  saints  according  to  the  will  of  God. 
And  we  know  that  to  them  that  love  God  all  things  work  together  for 
good,  even  to  them  that  are  called  according  to  His  purpose.  For 
whom  He  foreknew,  He  also  foreordained  to  be  conformed  to  the 
image  of  His  Son,  that  He  might  be  the  firstborn  among  many  breth- 
ren: and  whom  He  foreordained,  them  He  also  called:  and  whom 
He  called,  them  He  also  justified:  and  whom  He  justified,  them  He 
also  glorified. 

What  then  shall  we  say  to  these  things  ?  If  God  is  for  us,  who  is 
against  us  ?  He  that  spared  not  His  own  Son,  but  dehvered  Him  up 
for  us  all,  how  shall  He  not  also  with  Him  freely  give  us  all  things  ? 
Who  shall  lay  anything  to  the  charge  of  God's  elect  ?  it  is  God  that 
justifieth;  who  is  he  that  shall  condemn?  It  is  Christ  Jesus  that 
died,  yea  rather,  that  was  raised  from  the  dead,  who  is  at  the  right 
hand  of  God,  who  also  maketh  intercession  for  us.  Who  shall  sep- 
arate us  from  the  love  of  Christ.'*  Shall  tribulation,  or  anguish,  or 
persecution,  or  famine,  or  nakedness,  or  peril,  or  sword?  Even  as 
it  is  written.  For  thy  sake  we  are  killed  all  the  day  long;  we  were 
accounted  as  sheep  for  the  slaughter.  Nay,  in  aU  these  things  we 
are  more  than  conquerors  through  Him  that  loved  us.  For  I  am 
persuaded,  that  neither  death,  nor  life,  nor  angels,  nor  principahties, 
nor  things  present,  nor  things  to  come,  nor  powers,  nor  height,  nor 
depth,  nor  any  other  creature,  shall  be  able  to  separate  us  from  the 
love  of  God,  which  is  in  Christ  Jesus  our  Lord.  —  Romans  VHI. 
24-39. 


XX 


THE   PROCESS   OF   DIVINE   GRACE 

We  cannot  know  the  Spirit  of  God  otherwise  than  in 
ourselves,  as  our  own  spirit,  —  any  more  than  we  can 
know  the  divinity  in  Christ  otherwise  than  as  it  is 
revealed  in  the  quality  and  character  of  His  humanity. 
We  have  seen  that  the  first  evidence  or  expression  of 
the  presence  in  us  of  that  Holy  Spirit  which  is  the  spirit 
at  once  of  God,  of  Christ,  and,  however  inchoately, 
of  ourselves,  consists  in  the  sense  or  consciousness  of 
our  sonship  to  God  as  realized  and  revealed  to  us  in 
Christ.  We  have  also  seen,  however,  that  there  is  a  great 
distance  between  the  initial  relationship  of  sons  as  it 
begins  to  exist  in  faith,  and  the  final  consummation  of 
the  character  of  sons  as  it  needs  to  exist  in  fact.  Every- 
where the  business  or  function  of  spiritual  or  personal 
life  is  to  convert  meaning  into  reahty,  potentiality  into 
actuality.  Because  we  are  in  a  sense  rational  and 
free  by  nature,  we  have  in  another  sense  to  become 
rational  and  free  by  act  and  character.  The  having 
been  made  sons  of  God  does  not  absolve  us  from  the 
lifelong  task  of  becoming,  or  making  ourselves,  sons 
of  God.  The  task  of  realizing  ourselves  presupposes 
selves  in  us  to  realize,  but  we  shall  never  be  ourselves 
without  the  self-realization. 

277 


278     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

The  process  of  realizing  our  sonship  to  God,  through 
the  grace  of  God  working  with  us  both  objectively  and 
subjectively,  is  portrayed  in  the  chapter  we  are  studying. 
On  our  part  there  is  first  the  incipient  act  of  faith,  the 
apprehending  that  for  which  we  were  apprehended  by 
Jesus  Christ,  the  seizing  in  advance  by  faith  all  that 
is  to  be  made  ours  by  act  and  in  fact.  However  clear 
and  real  this  first-fruit  of  the  Spirit  is  in  us  —  indeed 
just  in  proportion  as  it  is  clear  and  real  —  we  at  once 
begin  to  groan  within  ourselves,  desiring  and  expecting 
the  realizing  and  consummation  of  our  sonship,  to 
wit,  the  redemption  of  our  bodies.  We  have  entered 
upon  the  rightfully  difiicult  task  of  making  our  bodies  as 
well  as  our  spirits  members  of  Christ  and  temples  of 
the  Holy  Ghost,  —  that  is  to  say,  of  becoming,  through 
all  our  natural  selves  de  facto  as  well  as  de  jurCy  sons 
of  God.  It  is  rightly  a  diflBcult  and  a  painful  task, 
because  the  diflSculty  and  the  pain  are  a  necessary 
part  of  the  process.  We  become  persons  at  all,  we 
attain  all  the  virtue,  the  holiness,  the  glory  and  the 
blessedness,  of  personality,  only  through  pain  and 
diflaculty.  St.  Paul  does  not  exaggerate  the  necessity, 
the  wisdom,  the  power,  the  glory  of  the  Cross.  He 
does  not  insist  too  constantly  or  too  strongly  that  we 
shall  only  be  glorified  with  Christ  as  we  know  here 
how  to  suffer  with  Christ.  He  only  declares  that  all 
the  possible  suffering  of  this  present  time  is  not  worthy 
of  consideration  when  compared  with  the  glory  that 
shall  be  revealed  in  us ;  that  these  light  aflflictions  which 
are  for  a  moment  are  working  out  in  us  a  far  more 


The  Process  of  Divine  Grace        279 

exceeding  and  eternal  weight  of  glory.  As  long  as  we 
are  here  we  are  necessarily  under  stress  of  the  process 
of  becoming,  of  making  ourselves  even  as  we  are  being 
made,  sons  of  God.  We  are  saved  in  hope,  by  faith 
not  by  sight.  But  if  we  really  believe  in  and  hope  for 
that  which  we  cannot  see,  then  can  we  with  patience 
wait  for  it. 

Meantime,  v^ith  us  as  with  our  Lord  before  us,  the 
gloom  that  shuts  out  sight  and  throws  us  back  upon 
faith  and  hope  will  often  so  thicken  as  to  obscure  even 
the  immediate  next  step.  We  will  not  know  so  much 
as  what  to  pray  for  as  we  ought.  Our  voice  will  be 
incapable  of  uttering  anything  more  than  inarticulate 
groanings.  But  the  darkness  that  is  so  dark  to  us 
is  no  darkness  with  God.  The  soul  of  the  believer  is 
sometimes  in  heaven  and  sometimes  in  hell,  but  it  is 
as  safe  in  one  as  in  the  other :  If  I  go  down  into  hell, 
behold,  Thou  art  there  also!  The  point  is  that  the 
process  of  our  redemption  is  not  all  our  own,  and  it 
goes  on  by  methods  not  all  or  always  understood  by 
ourselves.  We  are  often  nearest  when  we  think  our- 
selves farthest  off,  and  farthest  off  when  we  think 
ourselves  nearest.  God  reads  order  where  we  see  only 
confusion;  our  groanings  that  cannot  be  uttered  are 
the  intercessions  of  the  Holy  Ghost  to  Him  for  us,  and 
however  unintelligible  to  us  it  is  all  clear  to  Him  whose, 
after  all,  are  all  the  wisdom  and  the  power  of  our 
salvation. 

The  function  of  the  Holy  Ghost  is  to  bring  the  soul 
to  God,  to  prepare  it  to  enter  into  His  love  and  purpose 


280     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

concerning  it.  The  soul  thus  touched  with  divine  love 
and  admitted  into  the  eternal  meaning  and  purpose 
of  God  and  itself,  all  things  else  must  of  necessity  work 
with  it  for  good.  From  the  subjective  preparation  by 
the  Spirit  the  Apostle  passes  to  the  objective  array  of 
the  all  things  that  from  without  work  together  for 
eternal  life  with  the  soul  so  prepared  to  work  with 
them.  And  first  of  all  there  is  the  great  objective  fact 
of  God  Himself  eternally  and  infinitely  for  it  and  with 
it.  From  the  eternity  of  the  past  stands  first  on  our 
side  the  fact  of  the  divine  foreknowledge.  The  creation 
of  which  Man  is  the  manifest  head  and  end  exists 
from  and  for  Intelligence,  Reason.  We  may  trust  God 
equally  for  having  known  what  He  was  about  from 
the  beginning  and  for  having  entered  upon  nothing 
inconsistent  with  Himself.  His  foreknowledge  or  wis- 
dom was  not  divorced  from  His  love. 

Next,  therefore,  for  us  and  with  us  stands  the  divine 
forepurpose.  Whom  God  foreknew  them  He  also 
foreordained  or  predestinated.  Their  end  was  as 
clear  before  Him  as  their  beginning  and  was  just  as 
much  the  concern  of  the  eternal  love  which  is  Himself. 
We  are  no  more  objects  than  we  were  products  of 
chance.  Human  personality  is  too  great  and  precious 
a  thing  to  have  been  brought  into  existence  through 
the  travail  of  the  ages  without  a  definite  and  predeter- 
mined purpose,  without  a  destiny  commensurate  with 
its  acquired  and  inherent  possibilities  and  promises. 
Jesus  Christ  is  the  sole  adequate  expression  of  the 
divine  reason,  meaning,  and  end  of  human  personality. 


The  Process  of  Divine  Grace         281 

Whom  God  foreknew.  He  also  foreordained  to  be 
conformed  to  the  image  of  His  Son.  He  is  in  Himself 
the  realization  and  revelation  of  the  divine  sonship 
which  is  the  meaning  and  proper  destination  of  us  all, 
the  heavenly  pattern  shown  us  in  the  mount  after 
which  our  common  humanity  is  to  be  builded  into  the 
tabernacle  of  the  eternal  divine  presence  and  indwelling. 
But  Jesus  Christ  is  revelation  to  us  not  only  of  the  fact 
of  our  divine  sonship  but  of  the  process  by  which  that 
sonship  is  realized.  His  death  and  resurrection  is  the 
necessary  baptism  of  that  new  birth;  through  it  alone 
is  He  the  first-bom  among  many  brethren,  and  through 
it  alone  can  they  share  His  new  birth  and  Hfe. 

Whom  God  thus  foreknew  and  foreordained,  them 
He  also  called.  There  is  a  deep  significance  in  the 
fact  of  the  divine  call  as  a  necessary  moment  in  the  pro- 
cess of  human  salvation.  It  is  the  reference  of  the 
matter  of  eternal  life  to  the  action  upon  it  of  the  man 
himself.  Salvation  must  needs  come  to  us  as  a  divine 
invitation  or  call;  it  must  needs  be  subject  to  our  ovm 
acceptance.  Our  part,  however  secondary  and  sub- 
ordinate to  the  divine  part,  is  nevertheless  the  deter- 
mining factor.  But  both  parts,  in  all  the  necessity  and 
importance  of  each,  are  emphasized  in  the  nature  of 
the  call.  With  St.  Paul  Christianity  is  in  every  moment 
of  it  a  call  —  a  call  from  God  and  a  call  upon  our- 
selves. Not  only  was  he  himself  called  to  be  an  apostle, 
but  every  believer  is  called  to  be  a  saint.  As  there  is 
no  official  apostleship  so  there  is  no  personal  sanctity 
except  such  as  comes  from  God,  that  to  which  God 


282     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

calls  and  appoints  or  admits  us.  But  equally  there  is 
none  for  us  which  we  do  not  ourselves  accept  and 
assume.  The  called  according  to  St.  Paul  are  only 
those  in  whom  both  these  conditions  have  been  ful- 
filled, who  have  been  not  only  called  of  God  to  life  or 
office  or  task  but  have  heard  and  responded  and  are 
in  possession  or  in  discharge  of  that  to  which  they 
are  called.  There  is  no  word  of  God,  in  the  strict  or 
proper  sense,  except  such  as  is  addressed  to  intelligence 
or  will.  A  word,  properly  as  such,  must  be  not  only 
an  expression  of  these  but  an  expression  to  these.  The 
Gospel,  which  is  Jesus  Christ  Himself,  is  the  final  and 
complete  word  of  God  to  us,  because  it  is  the  perfect 
call,  the  perfect  address  and  appeal,  to  everything  that 
is  within  us,  reason,  affection,  will,  character,  Hfe, 
destiny.  How  all  these  may  be  our  own,  to  determine 
for  good  or  ill,  may  be  incomprehensible  to  us,  but  the 
fact  remains.  Every  true  call  of  nature  or  of  grace  is 
a  call  to  the  self  that  is  in  us,  and  a  call  in  respect  to 
which  all  depends  upon  the  how  we  hear. 

It  is  only  the  highest  instance  and  illustration  of  this, 
that  our  Lord  is  said  not  to  have  taken  His  high- 
priesthood  upon  Himself,  but  only  as  He  was  called 
of  God  to  it.  We  glorified  not  Himself  to  be  made  a 
high  priest,  but  He  that  spake  unto  Him,  Thou  art  my 
Son,  This  day  have  I  begotten  thee.  His  glorification 
to  the  highest  honour  and  exaltation  of  our  humanity 
was  indeed  His  own  act  and  achievement.  But,  if  we 
may  express  so  glaring  a  paradox,  it  was  His  own  act 
only  because  of  the  fact  that  it  was  not  His  own  act. 


The  Process  of  Divine  Grace        283 

but  the  act  of  God  in  Him.  His  achievement  or  attain- 
ment in  our  nature  of  the  perfection  of  hoHness  and 
Hfe  was  an  act  only  possible  for  even  Him  in  our 
nature  —  first  because  He  was  called  to  it  of  God,  and, 
secondly,  because  He  perfectly  heard  and  perfectly 
obeyed  the  call.  It  was  humanity's  supreme  act,  in 
Him,  of  perfect  faith  and  perfect  obedience  —  the  act 
by  which  it  at  once  was  made  and  made  itself  one  with 
God. 

The  call  of  God  to  us  in  Jesus  Christ  is  a  call  first  to 
something  immediate  and  secondly  to  something  ulti- 
mate and  final.  The  first  is  a  present  status  or  relation 
to  God  which  St.  Paul  describes  as  this  grace  wherein 
we  stand,  our  access  or  entrance  into  which,  he  says, 
we  have  had  through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  by  faith, 
and  the  expression  of  which  on  our  part  he  describes 
as  a  present  peace  vdth  God.  The  truth  which  St. 
Paul's  own  use  warrants  us  in  designating  justification 
by  faith  turns  upon  two  points  —  the  first  being  that 
God's  act  of  human  redemption  and  completion  in 
Jesus  Christ  is  revealed  to  our  faith  as  potentially  the 
redemption  and  completion  of  us  all;  and  the  second 
being  that  it  is  the  function  and  obligation  of  faith  to 
see  ourselves  so  redeemed  and  completed  in  Jesus 
Christ.  God's  Word,  which  is  exphcitly  Jesus  Christ 
Himself,  is  the  all-sufficient  ground  of  the  obligation 
of  faith  to  see  and  accept  what  God  reveals  and  gives 
in  Him.  ^Vhat  is  true  of  us  in  Christ,  who  is  the  truth 
of  us  all,  is  to  us  as  though  it  were  already  true  of  us 
in  ourselves.     The  immediate  effect  of   this  is    that 


284     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

where  our  faith  truly  answers  to  the  divine  grace,  we 
are  to  God  even  as  Jesus  Christ  Himself  is,  in  whom 
He  already  sees  us.  Or  rather  in  Jesus  Christ  Himself 
even  prior  to  our  faith  God  already  sees  us,  and  we 
have  only  to  open  the  eyes  of  our  faith  to  see  ourselves 
there  also.  He  who  has  this  divine  vision,  whatever 
the  warfare  of  present  condition  with  him,  enjoys 
already  the  peace  of  the  faith  which  brings  distant 
things  near  and  makes  future  things  present.  We  are 
not  to  God  only  what  we  have  first  made  ourselves, 
but  what  God  has  by  His  own  grace  first  made  us  in 
Christ,  that  we  are  thereby  in  Him  enabled  to  make 
ourselves.  We  are  not  accepted  as  sons  and  righteous 
through  being  so,  but  are  enabled  to  become  sons  and 
righteous  through  being  made  and  treated  as  such. 
Of  all  that  is  Christ  or  is  Christ's  we  have  divine 
warrant  for  saying  that  we  have  only  truly  to  believe 
or  to  know  that  it  is  ours  and  it  is  ours.  As  truly  as 
our  Lord  could  say.  All  that  the  Father  hath  is  mine, 
so  truly  have  we  the  right  to  say  that  all  that  He  Him- 
self has  or  is  is  ours. 

As  whom  God  calls  He  justifies,  so  whom  He  justifies 
He  glorifies.  St  Paul  knows  only,  in  this  positive  ac- 
count of  the  process  of  our  salvation,  the  call  that  is 
effectual,  that  is  both  given  and  accepted.  Consequently 
he  knows  of  only  an  effectual  justification,  where  the 
sonship  or  righteousness  is,  in  Jesus  Christ,  equally 
given  and  received.  Where  we  truly  by  faith  know  our- 
selves in  Christ  sons  of  God,  there  we  cannot  but  truly  in 
fact   and   in   ourselves  become  sons   of   God.     True 


The  Process  of  Divine  Grace        285 

justification  cannot  but  result  in  true  sanctification. 
Sanctification  is  the  making  ours  in  actuality  all  that 
justification  has  made  ours  in  potentiality.  It  is  the 
becoming  in  ourselves  all  that  God  has  made  us  in 
Christ.  That  which  once  for  all  was  made  ours  and  us 
in  Him  we  need  time  and  process  to  appropriate  and 
convert  to  ourselves.  Salvation  can  operate  in  us  only 
through  the  natural  and  spiritual  organs  and  activities 
of  ourselves,  our  reason  or  intelligence,  our  affections 
and  desires,  our  will,  our  acts  and  habits  and  character 
and  life.  The  law  of  the  action  of  all  these  requires 
all  that  time  and  environment  have  actually  to  offer 
to  human  experience  in  human  life  as  it  is.  Our  actual 
experience  is  just  what  we  need  to  become  all  ourselves 
in  Christ,  and  our  actual  environment  is  just  what  we 
need  for  that  experience.  There  is  a  divine  fitness  and 
propriety,  not  to  say  necessity,  in  all  that  our  Lord  had 
to  undergo  in  order  to  be  perfected  in  our  humanity, 
and  that  fitness  and  necessity  applied  to  Him  simply 
because  they  pertain  to  us  who  were  perfected  in  Him. 
St.  Paul  is  describing  the  successive  steps  or  moments 
in  the  long  process  of  our  salvation  in  absolute  or 
finished  terms,  and  so  he  speaks  not  of  our  sanctification 
but  of  our  glorification.  But  it  is  an  old  and  true 
interpretation  of  the  words  as  used  by  him  to  define 
sanctification  as  glory  begun,  or  in  progress,  and  glory 
or  glorification  as  sanctification  completed.  The  whole 
drama  of  human  spiritual  destiny  as  realized  and 
revealed  in  Jesus  Christ  may  recall  the  words  of  Irenaeus 
with  regard  to  our  Lord,  Longam  expositionem  hominis 


286     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

in  se  recapitulat.  In  Him  the  whole  course  or  process 
is  covered,  beginning  with  the  divine  foreknowledge  in 
the  past  and  ending  in  the  all-accomplished  predestina- 
tion in  the  future. 

What,  then,  shall  we  say  to  these  things  ?  The  new 
light  that  God  sheds  upon  the  divine  purpose  in  Christ 
Jesus  reveals  the  whole  creation  a  connected  and 
consistent  scheme  having  for  its  end  the  spiritual 
evolution  and  destination  of  humanity.  If  God  be  for 
us,  who  or  what  can  be  against  us.?^  Instructed  and 
enlisted  in  the  divine  meaning  and  purpose  of  things, 
there  can  be  nothing  that  does  not  definitely  and 
positively  work  with  us  and  for  us.  The  need  is  that 
we  be  so  instructed  and  enlisted.  And  the  prime 
diflSculty  is  encountered  in  the  divine  mode  of  human 
exaltation, — in  other  words,  in  the  offence  or  stumbling- 
block  of  the  cross.  If  the  mystery  of  wisdom  and 
love,  the  meaning  and  process  of  divine  fatherhood  and 
human  sonship,  has  its  expression  for  us  in  Jesus 
Christ,  how  can  we  account  for  it  that  He  who  is  the 
revelation  to  us  all  of  the  way,  the  truth,  and  the  life 
should  have  been  subjected  to  all,  should  have  been 
spared  naught,  of  such  a  human  experience  as  was 
actually  His.  The  point  of  the  mystery  Hes  just  in 
the  fact  that  God  spared  not  and  spares  not.  That 
God  spares  us  nothing  of  all  that  the  actuality  of  the 
world  has  to  subject  us  to  is  the  supreme  act  and 
expression  of  the  divine  love  and  wisdom.  That  there 
is  no  real  good  but  personal  good,  the  good  of  per- 
sonality, and  that,  for  us  at  least,  there  is  no  personal, 


The  Process  of  Divine  Grace         287 

spiritual  or  moral,  good  that  is  not  the  actual  conquest 
and  survival  of  evil  —  that  is  the  revelation  in  Jesus 
Christ  with  regard  to  human  life  and  destiny.  For 
our  Lord  to  have  been  spared  the  least  of  all  He  en- 
dured and  overcame,  would  have  been  to  abridge  by 
just  so  much  the  completeness  and  perfection  of  His 
attainment  and  exaltation.  And  it  was  the  truth  for 
Him  because  it  is  the  truth  for  us,  of  whom  He  is  the 
way,  the  truth,  and  the  life. 

The  answer  to  the  question  of  the  cross  for  Jesus 
Christ,  is  the  answer  for  us  of  all  questions  of  the  no 
longer  dark  or  insoluble  mysteries  of  human  life.  The 
love  that  spares  not,  means  on  our  part  the  faith  and 
the  grace  that  can  endure  all  and  overcome  all.  With- 
out the  former  we  should  never  attain  the  latter,  and 
it  is  the  attaining  the  latter  that  is  the  divine  process 
and  test  and  measure  of  our  human  exaltation.  He 
that  spared  not  His  Son,  and  through  not  sparing 
glorified  and  exalted  Him,  how  shall  He  not,  in  and 
with  Him,  by  the  selfsame  process  of  unsparing  love, 
bestow  upon  us  all  real,  spiritual,  and  eternal  good.^ 
Jesus  Christ  is  the  only  and  the  all-sufficient  theodicy. 
In  Him  all  meanings  are  revealed,  and  all  divine  means 
justified. 

There  are  two  further  questions  pertaining  one  to 
the  beginning,  the  other  to  the  end  of  God's  method 
and  process  of  grace  v^dth  us.  Who  shall  lay  anything 
to  the  charge  of  God's  elect  ?  What  if  God  in  His  love 
takes  sinners,  and  the  chief  of  sinners,  to  Himself  .5* 
The  answer  is  not  merely  that  God  in  His  sovereign 


288     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

choice  justifies  whom  He  will;  He  reveals  more  of  His 
secret  to  us  than  that.  His  elect  are  those  who  in  the 
exigency  of  their  own  hopeless  strife  with  sin  and 
death  come  to  find  in  Him  His  grace  sufficient  for  them. 
Because  His  grace  is  sufficient,  because  in  the  new  rela- 
tion of  their  present  attitude  towards  Himself  He  is 
become  their  righteousness  and  their  life,  therefore  He 
not  only  sovereignly  pronounces  them,  but  potentially 
makes,  and  actually  will  make,  them  righteous.  His 
justification  of  them  is  justified  not  merely  by  His 
arbitrary  will,  but  by  all  the  gracious  facts. 

And  who  shall  condemn  those  whom  God  has  so 
chosen  and  taken  to  Himself.?  Has  not  Christ  died, 
and  risen  again .?  And  does  not  that  mean  their  own 
death  to  sin,  and  their  own  life  to  God  and  holiness? 
Is  not  Christ's  presence  at  the  right  hand  of  God  as 
their  representative  and  advocate  God's  pledge  and 
assurance  that  sin  in  them  as  in  Him  has  been  con- 
demned and  abohshed  and  that  there  is  no  longer  any 
ground  of  condemnation  to  them  that  are  in  Christ 
Jesus  ? 

One  further  thought  concludes  the  Apostle's  survey 
of  the  eternal  and  infinite  grace  of  God  in  Jesus  Christ. 
There  is  no  hint  or  suggestion  that  the  earthly  expe- 
riences, the  cross,  of  Christ  are  something  instead  of 
their  own,  and  not  also  their  own.  The  hope  and 
assurance  is  only  that  in  experiences  that  are  His  and 
ours,  ours  as  well  as  His,  nothing  shall  separate  us 
from  Him;  that  in  His  temptations  we  shall  know  His 
power  and  victory;  that  having  suffered  with  Him  in 


The  Process  of  Divine  Grace        289 

His  death  we  may  be  raised  up  and  reign  with  Him 
in  His  life.  Who  or  what  shall  separate  us  from  the 
love  of  God  which  is  in  Christ  Jesus  our  Lord  ?  The 
promise  is  not  exemption  from  His  experiences  but 
salvation  and  exaltation  through  BUs  experiences. 


XXI 
THE    CHRIST   OF   SAINT   PAUL 


XXI 

THE   CHRIST   OF   SAINT  PAUL 

That  St.  Paul  realizes  profoundly  the  truth  of  the 
pre-existence  and  the  deity  of  our  Lord  there  can  be 
no  question.  The  conviction  of  it  runs  through  the 
whole  texture  of  the  Apostle's  thought  and  knowledge 
of  Jesus  Christ,  and  is  involved  in  the  entire  conception 
of  his  own  and  all  men's  personal  relation  to  Him. 

Our  Lord,  according  to  St.  John,  expresses  His  own 
personal  consciousness  of  oneness  with  God  in  the 
words.  My  Father  worketh  and  I  work.  I  and  my 
Father  are  one.  Taken  alone,  this  may  affirm  nothing 
more  than  a  perfect  moral  unity  of  spirit  and  activity 
with  God.  But  it  is  on  the  direct  hne  of  a  deeper 
truth  which  finds  abundant  and  definite  expression  in 
the  life  and  consciousness  of  all  the  teachers  of  the 
Gospel  in  the  New  Testament.  It  is  contained  in  the 
formula  so  common  in  the  mouth  of  St.  Paul,  Grace  to 
you  and  peace  from  God  our  Father  and  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ.  Here  and  always  God  and  Christ  are 
so  united  and  identified  in  the  common  act  of  divine 
reconciliation  and  human  redemption  that  the  act  of 
each  is  the  act  of  the  other. 

But  we  cannot  limit  St.  John's  or  St.  Paul's  or  St. 


294     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

Peter's  direct  sense  of  the  oneness  of  Jesus  Christ  with 
God  to  any  particular  set  or  sets  of  words.  It  fills  all 
their  mind  and  informs  all  their  thoughts  or  words 
about  Him.  Jesus  Christ  is  the  eternal  spiritual  and 
personal  truth  of  themselves  and  of  all  things;  the 
living  creative  cause  as  well  as  the  personal  final  cause 
of  the  universe.  He  is  God  in  energy  or  actuality,  in 
nature  as  well  as  in  grace,  in  natural  creation  as  well 
as  in  spiritual  new  or  higher  creation.  They  go  to 
Jesus  Christ  after  His  resurrection  as  to  God ;  and  God 
has  come  and  comes  to  them  in  Jesus  Christ  as  nowhere 
else.  Their  Lord  is  a  living  Lord,  and  they  themselves 
are  in  Him,  and  He  is  in  them  as  only  God  can  be. 

The  best  evidence  of  our  Lord's  deity  lies  in  the  fact 
of  what  I  think  we  may  rightly  call  His  human  univer- 
sality. The  expression  is  in  need  of  fuller  explanation 
and  justification.  Our  Lord  was  a  man  as  real  and 
actual  as  any  other  in  all  that  constitutes  human  nature 
or  that  makes  up  human  hfe  and  experience.  The 
only  difference  in  His  case,  on  the  human  side,  was  one 
of  personal  action,  in  the  same  nature  and  under 
identical  conditions,  different  from  that  of  any  other 
man.  This  difference  consists  primarily  in  the  fact  of 
a  personal  holiness  so  transcending  in  degree  that  of 
all  others  that  in  itself  it  demands  a  divine  explanation. 
But  that  is  by  no  means  the  sole  feature  in  our  Lord's 
humanity  which  can  be  only  divinely  explained.  Here, 
in  Him,  is  a  human  holiness,  righteousness,  life,  which 
at  once  possesses  a  significance  and  a  value  which  we 
can  only  describe  as  universal.     This  is  the  holiness. 


The  Christ  of  Saint  Paul         295 

the  righteousness,  the  life,  not  of  one  man  but  of  all 
men.  The  one  man  is  become  all  men,  just  as  Adam 
was  not  only  one  but  all  men.  As  in  Adam  we  all  sin 
and  die,  so  in  Christ  we  are  all  made  alive,  from  sin 
and  so  from  death.  By  Christ's  humanity  I  mean  a 
humanity  now  risen,  redeemed,  united  with  God  and 
sharing  with  Him  the  divinity  of  which  it  is  capable, 
the  divinity  of  perfect  love,  which  is  holiness  and 
righteousness  and  eternal  life.  Things  are  what  they 
are,  independently  of  any  question  of  how  they  are  so. 
Christianity  is  the  ultimate  and  supreme  fact  of  hu- 
manity. The  life  has  been  manifested  and  is  with  us. 
By  that  we  mean  the  divine-human  life  of  Jesus  Christ; 
and  that  life  is  in  the  world  not  the  individual  life  of 
one  man  but  the  universal  life  of  all  men.  If  this  be 
so,  then  He  can  be  nothing  less  than  God  our  holiness, 
our  righteousness,  our  life.  For  no  individual  human 
being  can  be  all  that  He  is  to  all  men.  I  have  some- 
where described  the  New  Testament  representation  of 
our  universal  relation  to  Jesus  Christ  somewhat  as 
follows : 

The  life  of  Jesus  Christ  is  in  the  New  Testament 
described  as  ours,  in  three  senses  or  stages :  In  the  first 
place  it  is  exemplarily  or  representatively  ours;  it  is  in 
all  points  like  unto  ours,  or  what  ours  would  be  if  it 
were  completed  according  to  its  divine  idea.  Under 
this  head  it  is  not  only  legitimate  but  necessary  to 
describe  the  incarnate  life  of  our  Lord  in  the  consistently 
human  terms  in  which  we  have  done  so.  In  the  second 
place,  the  life  of  our  Lord  is  ours  not  only  representa- 


296     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

lively  but  causally;  as  He  Himself  says,  Because  I  live, 
ye  shall  live  also.  He  is  not  only  example  but  cause 
of  life  to  us  all  who  believe.  We  see,  brought  to  bear 
upon  humanity  in  Him,  the  divine  causes  and  condi- 
tions which  are  alone  productive  of  eternal  life;  and 
we  are  made  to  experience  in  ourselves  in  Him  the 
actual  operation  of  the  selfsame  causes  and  conditions 
which  operated  humanly  in  Him.  Let  anyone  read 
and  ponder  the  description  (Eph.  i.  19,  20)  of  the 
exceeding  greatness  of  the  power  of  God  to  usward 
who  believe,  according  to  that  working  of  the  strength 
of  His  might  which  He  wrought  in  Christ,  when  He 
raised  Him  from  the  dead.  But,  in  the  third  place, 
Jesus  Christ  is  even  more  generally  described  as  not 
merely  causally  or  virtually  but  really  and  personally 
our  Life;  and  we  cannot  overstate  or  overvalue  the 
sense  or  extent  in  which  that  is  true.  Christ  is  always 
described  as  being  personally  and  creatively  present  in 
the  believer,  taking  him  up  into  Himself  and  making 
Himself  his  higher  personality  and  life.  It  is  not  too 
much  to  say  with  St.  Paul  that  Jesus  Christ  is  not 
only  the  divine  truth  of  every  man  but  is  the  higher 
and  diviner  self  of  every  man.  So  that  there  is  no 
exaggeration  in  his.  No  longer  I  but  Christ;  I  am  dead 
and  Christ  lives  in  me;  the  lower  I  of  mere  nature  and 
self  has  been  lost  in  the  higher  I  of  God.  And  this 
higher  I  of  God,  which  is  Christ  in  me,  is  the  eternally 
true  I;  in  losing  myself  I  have  found  myself.  When 
Christ  who  is  our  life  shall  appear,  then  shall  we  also 
appear  with  Him  in  glory.     Christ  in  us  is  the  hope, 


The  Christ  of  Saint  Paul  £97 

as  He  will  be  the  consummation,  of  our  glory;  which 
means  our  self-realization  and  completion. 

Let  us  consider  a  little  further  this  universality  of 
the  humanity  of  our  Lord.  One  says,  *'  You  lay  great 
stress  upon  the  view  that  our  Lord  was  not  a  man, 
but  man.  I  find  this  a  diflBcult  conception;  does  it 
mean  that  humanity  has  a  concrete  real  existence  apart 
from  the  individual  persons  who  are  human,  and  that 
this  Universal  becomes  visible  in  Christ?  If  this  be 
so,  does  it  not  lead  us  to  a  metaphysical  Realism,  not 
now  generally  held  ?  "  The  universality  of  our  Lord's 
humanity  is  only  explicable  upon  the  fact  that  His 
personality  is  a  divine  one.  It  is  only  God  in  it  that 
can  make  it  applicable  to  all  or  the  truth  of  all.  And 
since,  according  to  St.  Paul,  it  is  always  Christ  Himself 
who  brings  Himself  to  us  and  makes  all  that  is  His 
our  own,  it  follows  that,  according  to  St.  Paul,  Jesus 
Christ  can  be  to  us  nothing  less  than  divine.  The 
concrete  universal  of  humanity  which  may  be  found 
in  Jesus  Christ  belongs  to  it  not  as  humanity  but  as 
God  in  humanity.  It  is  God  in  it  which  makes  that 
particular  humanity  of  our  Lord,  His  holiness.  His 
righteousness,  His  life,  valid  and  available  for  all;  so 
that  every  man  may  find  himself  in  Christ,  and  in 
Christ  find  himself.  But,  to  go  further  —  may  we  not 
say,  that  the  only  true  realism  or  idealism,  the  doctrine 
that  the  ideal  is  the  real,  is  to  be  found  in  the  New 
Testament  doctrine  of  Jesus  Christ  ?  He  is  the  eternal 
creative  idea,  the  ideal  principle,  as  of  everything  else 
so  especially  of  man  as  the  end  and  heir  of  all.     In 


298     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

that  sense  He  is  humanity  from  before  the  foundation 
of  the  earth,  the  Man  from  Heaven,  the  Son  of  man, 
in  whom  in  the  end  all  humanity  and  all  else  in  human- 
ity is  to  come  to  itself  and  to  be  fulfilled.  The  eternal 
final  cause  is  first  cause  as  well  as  finis;  the  divine 
ideal  is  the  only  certain  and  true  real. 

I  may  say  a  single  word  in  explanation  of  the  act  of 
Christianity  in  not  only  identifying  Jesus  Christ  with 
God,  but  at  the  same  time  distinguishing  Him  in  the 
Godhead.  We  do  not  say  ordinarily  that  Jesus  Christ 
is  God,  but  that  He  is  the  Logos  or  Word  or  Son  of 
God.  No  one  can  enter  into  the  meaning  and  truth 
of  Christ  and  Christianity  and  admit  that  our  Lord 
is  anything  less  than  God.  Yet  we  cannot  but  feel 
the  difference  and  the  choice  between  saying  that 
Christ  is  God  in  the  absolute  sense,  and  saying,  more 
qualifiedly,  that  He  is  the  Logos  or  Word  of  God.  He 
is  ^cos,  but  He  is  not  6  Ocos.  The  divine  Word  can 
never  be  other  than  personal  or  less  than  God;  but 
neither  is  He  absolutely  or  exclusively  God,  in  a 
Monarchian  or  Sabellian  sense. 

After  all  that  has  been  said  in  the  preceding  chapters 
of  the  necessity  of  a  thoroughgoing  acceptance  of  the 
humanness  of  our  Lord's  earthly  life  and  experiences, 
it  is  impossible  to  pass  by  the  question  of  the  difficulty 
of  combining  with  that,  or  even  maintaining  together 
with  that,  the  view  of  His  Godhead  here  no  less  insisted 
upon.  This  may  best  be  realized  and  considered  in  a 
concrete  instance  of  actual  experience.  One  says, 
"  My  difficulty  is  as  follows :  The  agony  in  the  Garden 


The  Christ  of  Saint  Paul  299 

and  the  cry  of  My  God,  my  God,  why  hast  Thou 
forsaken  me?  seem  to  show  that  our  Lord  was  as 
personally  distinct  from  God  as  we  ourselves  are,  that 
His  personality,  His  self-consciousness  and  will,  was 
not  a  divine  Personality,  but  a  human;  so  human  as  to 
be  capable  of  losing  its  hold  upon  God,  just  as  we  may 
lose  our  hold  upon  God.  We  might  take  refuge  in  the 
thought  that  this  may  have  been  only  a  later  putting 
into  our  Lord's  mouth  of  the  supposed  prophetic 
language  of  Ps.  xxii.  But  the  cry  of  dereliction  seems 
to  be  the  most  certain  of  the  Words  from  the  Cross, 
more  certain  than  the  Word  in  which  the  sufferer 
regained  His  hold  upon  God  —  Father,  into  thy  hand 
I  commend  my  spirit." 

There  is  no  doubt  that  we  have  here  expressed  a  very 
real  difficulty;  perhaps  an  insoluble  one,  the  insoluble 
one.  But  let  us  see  what  it  means  or  implies.  If  the 
extreme  experience  of  our  Lord,  in  the  Garden  and 
upon  the  Cross,  was  not  a  veritably  human  one,  what 
else  was  it  or  how  else  shall  we  explain  it.^  If  we 
could,  with  the  aid  of  criticism,  get  rid  of  the  words  in 
question,  would  we  then  be  able,  and  do  we  want  to 
be  able,  to  construe  these  experiences  of  our  Lord  into 
some  other,  non-human  experiences  ?  If  this  was  His 
last  and  probably  greatest  temptation,  would  we  wish 
to  prove  that  He  was  not  here,  too,  tempted  in  all  points 
like  as  we  are?  What  would  there  be  to  gain  in  the 
being  able  to  feel  that  this  was  not  a  really  human 
temptation  and  victory,  was  not  the  victory,  in  fine,  in 
which  His  task  of  redemption  was  finished,  the  victory 


SOO     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

in  which  humanity  in  His  person  had  overcome  the 
world?  In  what  other  terms  then  should  we  be  able 
more  satisfactorily  to  construe  the  meaning  of  the  life 
and  the  cross  of  Jesus  Christ  ? 

Yet,  assuming,  as  we  must,  that  our  Lord's  tempta- 
tions were  to  their  utmost  limit  our  own  temptations 
and  not  those  of  one  other  than  ourselves,  are  we  not 
involved  in  the  difficulty  of  a  double  personality  in 
our  one  Lord;  a  divine  personality  in  which  He  is  the 
very  Word  of  God  Himself  uttered  or  expressed  in 
humanity,  God  self-fulfilled  and  self-fulfilling  in  the 
nature  and  under  the  conditions  of  us  all;  and  on  the 
other  hand,  too,  a  human  personahty  which  alone  can 
be  the  real  and  perfect  expression  of  God  humanly 
self -realized  and  manifested  ?  We  find  ourselves  under 
a  necessity  of  seeing  in  Jesus  Christ  from  beginning  to 
end  an  act  of  God  in  nature  and  in  humanity.  In  Him 
God  comes  to  us  and  is  in  us,  and  we  come  to  God 
and  are  in  Him;  all  that  humanity  is  in  Him  is  the 
work  of  God  in  humanity,  and  our  part  in  that  work 
is  only  what  He  does  and  is  in  us.  And  at  the  same 
time  we  are  under  an  equal  necessity  of  recognizing  in 
our  Lord  as  in  ourselves  a  human  activity  the  freest 
and  most  personal  possible,  the  most  determinative 
and  constitutive  of  our  own  very  selves.  The  time  may 
come  when  we  shall  better  state  to  ourselves  this 
paradox  or  seeming  contradiction,  and  better  too 
perhaps  adapt  and  fit  ourselves  to  its  acceptance;  it 
can  never  come  when  we  shall  be  able  either  to  solve 
it  or  to  reject  it. 


The  Christ  of  Saint  Paul  801 

Is  not,  however,  the  whole  difficulty  already  expressed 
for  us  in  the  very  word  Incarnation;  a  difficulty  which 
the  most  of  us  evade  by  simply  not  taking  the  word 
seriously,  in  the  fulness  and  reality  of  its  meaning? 
In  the  instance  we  have  been  analyzing,  what  do  we 
see  but  the  disposition  common  to  us  all  to  find  in  our 
Lord's  temptations  experiences  that  are  not  human, 
and  in  Himself  one  who  was  not  truly  man.  The 
completed  work  and  results  of  the  Incarnation  certainly 
justify  it  as  a  fact,  but  because  we  cannot  comprehend 
it  we  hesitate  to  accept  it  as  a  possibility.  Unable  to 
construe  it  to  our  minds  or  correlate  it  in  thought,  we 
either  reject  it  altogether  or  evade  it  by  half  or  seeming 
acceptances.  It  is  one  of  the  few  ultimate  matters  in 
which  the  whole  truth  comes  to  us  only  through  a 
childHke  acceptance  of  actuahty  as  matter  of  fact,  —  as, 
for  example,  the  actuality  of  human  freedom  in  the 
face  of  a  universal  cosmical  necessity.  The  fact  of 
the  personal  Divine  and  the  personally  human  at  once 
in  the  one  Person  of  Jesus  Christ  has  to  be  accepted, 
not  alone  as  a  fact  behind  and  above  our  comprehension 
or  construing,  but  likewise  as  a  fact  necessary  to  any 
comprehending  or  construing  of  the  higher  facts  of 
both  God  and  ourselves.  As  we  are  fairly  launched 
upon  the  quest,  the  nearer  we  pursue  it  to  the  end  the 
more  are  we  persuaded  that,  at  least  in  His  relation 
with  us,  God  is  fully  and  completely  revealed  to  us  as 
God  only  in  Jesus  Christ;  and  equally,  that  we  are  our 
realized  and  completed  selves  only  in  Jesus  Christ  as 
God.     I  cannot  construe  the  Incarnation  in   all  its 


302     The  Gospel  According  to  Saint  Paul 

necessary  coexistences  and  seeming  contradictions 
either  to  myself  or  to  others;  but  infinitely  less  can  I 
reject  the  Incarnation  without  blotting  out  all  eternal 
truth  of  the  universe  and  all  higher  life  of  ourselves. 
However  far  off  this,  and  all  similar  attempts,  may  be 
from  solving,  or  even  satisfactorily  stating,  our  difficul- 
ties, we  must  not  only  for  the  truth's  but  for  our  very 
hfe's  sake  continue  such  attempts.  We  must,  if  only, 
hold  on  to  and  insist  upon  the  opposite  and  com- 
plementary terms  of  our  Lord's  deity  and  His  humanity, 
until  we  can  better  correlate  them  in  our  minds  and 
approve  their  coexistent  and  equal  truth  to  our  reason. 
Here  I  leave  my  exposition  of  the  Gospel  of  Jesus 
Christ  as  St.  Paul  sees  it  in  Him  and  knows  it  in  him- 
self. According  to  St.  Paul,  as  according  to  St.  John 
and  according  to  the  whole  mind  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, Christianity  recognizes  and  accepts  in  Jesus 
Christ,  not  alone  the  manifestation  and  revelation,  but 
the  communication  of  God's  own  divine  righteousness 
and  eternal  life.  The  Gospel  is  not  merely  a  truth,  it 
is  a  power  and  an  activity.  He  who  is  in  Jesus  Christ 
is  in  the  actual  operation  or  working  of  the  selfsame 
forces  and  causes  which  made  Jesus  Christ  Himself 
humanly  what  He  was.  Those  forces  or  causes  are 
on  one  side  divine,  and  constitute  all  that  we  express 
by  the  general  term  grace.  Grace  covers  all  that  God 
Himself  is  or  does  in  us,  all  that  we  experience  as  His 
"motions"  or  designate  as  His  spirit.  They  are  on 
the  other  side  of  them  human,  and  are  expressed  by 
the  general  terms  faithy  obedience,  etc.     In  Jesus  we 


The  Christ  of  Saint  Paul  303 

see,  and  by  Jesus  Christ  we  mean,  the  divine  operating 
causes,  the  grace,  the  salvatio  salvanSy  as  well  as  the 
human  elements,  the  operated  effects,  the  faith  and 
obedience,  the  salvatio  salvata.  He  is  the  divine  as 
well  as  the  human,  God  as  well  as  ourselves,  in  the 
synthesis  of  our  divine-human  righteousness  and  life, 
which  is  our  salvation.  The  mystery  of  the  Incarna- 
tion may  be  permanently  a  mystery,  in  the  extremest 
sense  of  the  term,  a  fact  or  actuality  which  reason 
cannot  construe  nor  language  express;  but  it  is  the 
mystery  which  solves  and  illumines  all  others. 


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Rollings,  S.S.J.E.     Fcp.  Svo,  162  pages.  $0.60,  net. 


LONGMANS,  GREEN,  &»  CO:S  PUBLICATIONS. 

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to  the  Devotional  use  of  the  Psalms  in  Daily  Public  and 
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of  East  Stockwith.  Second  Edition,  reset  in  larger  type. 
Crown  8vo.  $i-75.  w^^- 

ON  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  PERSONAL  IDENTITY  CON- 
SIDERED WITH  REFERENCE  TO  A  FUTURE  LIFE. 
By  C.  CoMYNS  Tucker,  late  Fellow  of  University  College, 
Oxford.     Crown   8vo.  $0.50,  net. 

NUNC  DIMITTIS;  OR,  THE  SONG  OF  THE  WATCHER 
FOR  THE  LORD'S  CHRIST.  By  Thomas  A.  Gurney, 
M.A.,  LL.B.,  Vicar  of  Emmanuel  Church,  Clifton.  Crown 
8vo.  $1.00,  net. 

JOHN  MASON  NEALE,  D.D.  A  Memoir.  By  Mrs.  Charles 
TowLE.  With  Photogravure  Portrait  and  5  other  Illus- 
trations.    8vo.  $3-oo,  net. 

***  Dr.  Neale  (181 8-1 866)  besides  being  the  author  of  many  books  on 
Theological  and  Ecclesiological  subjects  was  a  prolific  hymn  writer  and  trans- 
lator.    "Jerusalem  the  Golden"  was,  perhaps,  his  best-known  hymn. 

"An  altogether  delightful  bit  of  biography  .  .  .  the  character  sketched  is  a 
most  attractive  one.  The  book  will  be  read  with  vmfiagging  interest.  Dr. 
N  bale's  personal  history  is  given  without  the  prolixity  which  often  makes  the 
opening  chapters  of  a  biography  tedious,  nor  is  the  book  burdened  with  over- 
much correspondence.  Yet  enough  is  told  to  give  a  very  vivid  picture  of  the 
Church  revival  in  which  Neale  held  a  unique  place." — The  Churchman  (N.Y.). 

THE  MASTER  OF  THE  WORLD.  A  Study  of  Christ.  By 
the  Very  Rev.  Charles  Lewis  Slattery,  Dean  of  the 
Cathedral  in  Faribault;  Author  of  "Felix  Reville  Brunot 
(1820-1898)"  and  "Edward  Lincoln  Atkinson  (1865- 
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PRACTICE  AND  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION.  A  Study  of 
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Woods,  Ph.D.,  Instructor  in  Philosophy  at  Harvard 
University.  ("Paddock  Lectures,"  1905-1906.)  Crown 
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PERSONAL  IDEALISM  AND  MYSTICISM.  The  Paddock 
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New  York.  By  the  Rev.  William  Ralph  Inge.M  A.,  D.D., 
late  Fellow  of  King's  College,  Cambridge;  Vicar  of  All 
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THE  ALTAR  AND  THE  LIFE.  Meditations  on  the  Blessed 
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Life.  By  the  Rev.  Jesse  Brett,  L.Th.,  Chaplain  of  All 
Saints'  Hospital,  Eastbourne.  Author  of  "  Anima  Christi," 
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INTRODUCTION  TO  DOGMATIC  THEOLOGY.  By  the 
Rev.  Francis  J.  Hall,  D.D.,  Professor  of  Dogmatic 
Theology  in  the  Western  Theological  Seminary,  Chicago. 
Crown  8vo.  (By  mail,  $1.60)  $1.50,  net. 

THE  GOSPEL  IN  THE  GOSPELS.  By  William  Porcher 
Du  BosE,  M.A.,  S.T.D.,  Author  of  "The  Soteriology  of 
the  New  Testament,"  etc.;  Professor  of  Exegesis  in  the 
University  of  the  South,  Sewanee.     Crown  8vo. 

(By  mail,  Si. 62)  $1.50,  net. 

THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL.  By  the  Rev. 
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"  Tne  Soteriolo.^y  of  the  New  Testament,"  "  The  Gospel  and 
the  Gospels";  Professor  of  Exegesis  in  the  University  of 
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THE  LIFE  OF  A  CHRISTIAN.  Some  Suggestions  for  Short 
Studies  in  the  Spiritual  Life.  By  the  Rev.  Charles 
Mercer  Hall,  M.A.,  Rector  of  the  Church  of  the  Holy 
Cross,  Kingston,  N.  Y.     116  pages,  12 mo. 

HUMILITY.  A  Devotional  Treatise.  By  the  Rev.  Jesse 
Brett,  L.Th.,  Chaplain  of  All  Saints'  Hospital,  East- 
bourne.    Fcp.    8vo.  $0.70,  neL 

LIBERTY,  AND  OTHER  SERMONS.  By  the  Right  Rev. 
Charles  H.  Brent,  D.D.,  Bishop  of  the  Philippines. 
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A  BOOK  OF  ANGELS.  Edited  by  L.  P.,  Compiler  of  "The 
Inheritance  of  the  Saints."  With  12  Rembrandt  Gravures. 
Crown  8vo.  $1.80,  net. 

*♦*  This  is  a  collection  of  original  papers  on  different  subjects  connected 
with  Angels,  contributed  by  various  writers,  among  whom  are  the  Dean  of 
Salisbury,  the  late  Canon  T.  T.  Carter,  the  Rev.  V.  S.  S.  Coles,  Canon  Wirg- 
man.  Dean  Randall,  and  the  Dean  of  Grahamstown.  There  are  twelve  repro- 
ductions of  pictures  from  Mediaeval  and  modem  artists,  and  also  several 
poems  some  having  been  specially  written  for  the  book. 


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CONFESSION  AND  ABSOLUTION.  An  Investigation  of 
the  Teaching  of  the  Bible  and  Prayer-Book.  By  the  Rev. 
Alfred  G.  Mortimer,  D.D.,  Rector  of  St.  Mark's,  Phila- 
delphia; Author  of  "Helps  to  Meditation,"  etc.  Crown 
8vo,  147  pages.  (By  mail,  $0.83)  So. 75,  net. 

"The  purpose  of  this  little  book  is  to  provide  a  Manual  which  may  be  placed 
in  the  hands  of  intelligent  lay  people  desirous  of  informing  themselves  in 
regard  to  the  doctrine  and  practice  of  Confession  and  Absolution  in  the  Church. 
The  tone  of  the  book  is  devotional  rather  than  dogmatic,  and  it  is  intended 
to  be  constructive  in  presenting  a  coherent  view  of  the  teaching  of  Holy 
Scripture  as  interpreted  by  the  declarations  in  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer."' 

THE  EMPTY  TOMB.  Being  thoughts  on  the  Resurrection 
of  Our  Lord.  By  B  W.  Randolph,  D.D.,  Principal  of 
Ely  Theological  College,  Hon.  Canon  of  Ely.     Crown  8vo. 

$0.50,  net 

THE  EXAMPLE  OF  OUR  LORD.  Especially  for  His 
Ministers.  By  the  Right  Rev.  A.  C.  A.  Hall,  D.D.,  LL.D., 
Bishop  of  Vermont.     Crown  8vo. 

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CORPUS  CHRIST!,  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS.  By  the  Rev. 
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8vo.  $1-25,  net. 

Contents. — Corpus  Christi — The  Resurrection  of  the  Dead — Divine  Fore- 
knowledge and  Human  Freedom— The  Atonement — The  Kingdom  of  God 
— Some  Aspects  of  the  Eucharist. 

LETTERS  TO  A  GODCHILD  ON  THE  CATECHISM  AND 
CONFIRMATION.  By  Alice  Gardner,  Associate  and 
Lecturer  of  Newnham  College,  Cambridge;  Author  of 
"Theodore  of  Studium,"  etc.     Fcp.  8vo.  $1.00 

THE  MISSION  OF  THE  HOLY  GHOST.  By  the  Rev.  G. 
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of  the  County  Palatine  of  Lancaster.     Crown  8vo. 

$1.50,  net, 

AN  EASTERTIDE  WITH  JESUS.  By  Rev.  Anthony 
Bathe,  M.A.,  Author  of  "What  I  Should  Believe,"  "A 
Lent  with  Jesus,"  etc.     32mo.  $0.40 


flantifioofes  for  tf)e  Clergy 

EDITED  BY 

The  Rev.  ARTHUR  W.  ROBINSON,  D.D. 

VICAR  OF  ALLHALLOWS  BARKING  BY  THE  TOWER 

Crown  9>vo.  price  $0.90  net  per  Volume.    By  mail,  $0.96. 

The  purpose  of  the  writers  of  this  Series  is  to  present  in  a  clear  and  attract- 
ive way  the  responsibilities  and  opportunities  of  the  Clergy  of  to-day,  and 
to  offer  such  practical  guidance,  in  regard  both  to  aims  and  to  methods,  as 
experience  may  have  shown  to  be  valuable.  It  is  hoped  that  the  Series,  while 
primarily  intended  for  those  who  are  already  face  to  face  with  the  duties 
and  problems  of  the  ministerial  office,  may  be  of  interest  and  assistance  also 
to  others  who  are  considering  the  question  of  entering  into  Holy  Orders. 


THE  PERSONAL  LIFE  OF  THE  CLERGY.     By  the  Editor. 

"  It  is  a  short  book,  but  it  covers  a  wide  field.  Every  line  of  it  tells,  and 
it  is  excellent  reading.  Not  the  least  valuable  part  of  the  book  are  the  ex- 
tremely apt  and  striking  quotations  from  various  writers  of  eminence,  which 
are  placed  in  the  form  of  notes  at  the  end  of  the  chapters.  It  is  emphatically 
a  book  for  both  clergy  and  laity  to  buy  and  study."— church  Tim^s. 

*'  We  are  grateful  for  a  little  book  which  will  be  of  service  to  many  priests, 
young  and  old.  We  need  more  priests,  and  such  a  book  may  well  increase 
their  number  by  explaining  the  nature  of  the  life  to  which  a  vocation  to 
Holy  Orders  calls  men  ;  but  we  need  still  more  that  priests  should  realize 
the  life  to  which  they  are  called  and  pledged  ;  and  this  they  can  hardly  fail 
to  do  if  they  listen  to  Mr.  Robinson's  prudent  and  tender  counsels." — Church 
Quarterly  Review. 

PATRISTIC  STUDY.    By  the  Rev.  H.  B.  Swete,  D.D.,  Regius 

Professor  of  Divinity  in  the  University  of  Cambridge. 

"The  whole  of  the  work  which  this  little  volume  contains  is  most  admir- 
ably done.  Sufficient  is  told  about  the  personal  history  of  the  fathers  to 
make  the  study  of  their  writings  profitable." — Church  Quarterly  Review. 

"  This  is  an  admirable  little  guide-book  to  wide  study  by  one  who  well 
knows  how  to  guide.  It  is  sound  and  learned,  and  crammed  full  of  infor- 
mation, yet  pleasant  in  style  and  easy  to  understand." — Pall  Mall  Gazette. 

THE  MINISTRY  OP  CONVERSION.  By  the  Rev.  A.  J.  Mason, 
D.D.,  Master  of  Pembroke  College,  Cambridge,  and  Canon  of  Canterbury. 

'•  It  ■will  be  found  most  valuable  and  interesting."— (?Mar<fiari. 

"Canon  Mason  has  given  a  manual  that  should  be  carefully  studied  b> 
all,  whether  clergy  or  laity,  who  have  in  any  way  to  share  in  the  '  Ministry 
of  Conversion '  by  preaching,  by  parochial  organization,  or  by  personal  in- 
fluence."— Scottish  Guardian. 

FOREIGN  MISSIONS.     By  the  Right  Rev.  H.  H.  Montgomery, 

D.D.,  formerly  Bishop  of  Tasmania,  Secretary  of  the  Society  for  the 

Propagation  of  the  Gospel  in  Foreign  Parts. 

"  Bishop  Montgomery's  admirable  little  book.  .  .  .  Into  a  limited  compass 

he  has  compressed  the  very  kind  of  information  which  gives  one  an  adequate 

impression  of  the  spirit  which  pervades  a  religion,  of  what  is  its  strength 

and  weakness,  what  its  relation  to  Christianity,  what  the  side  upon  which 

it  must  be  approached." — Church  Quarterly  Review, 


Handbooks  for  the  Clergy— continued. 

Crown  8vo.,  price  ^0.90  net  per  Volurae. 

THE  STUDY  OF  THE  GOSPELS.  By  the  Very  Rev.  J. 
Abmitage  Robinson,  D.D.,  Dean  of  Westminster. 
"  The  little  book  on  the  Gospels,  which  the  new  Dean  of  Westminster  has 
recently  published,  is  one  to  be  warmly  commended  alike  to  clerey  and  laity. 
Any  intelligent  person  who  takes  the  trouble  to  work  througn  this  little 
volume  of  150  pages  will  be  rewarded  by  gaining  from  it  as  clear  a  view  of 
the  synoptic  problem  as  is  possible  without  prolonged  and  independent 
study  of  the  sources." — The  Pilot  (London). 

A  CHRISTIAN  APOLOGETIC.    By  the  Very  Rev.  Wilfokd  L. 

Bobbins,  Dean  of  the  General  Theological  Seminary,  New  York. 
"  We  recommend  this  handbook  with  confidence  as  a  helpful  guide  to  those 
clergy  and  teachers  who  have  thoughtful  doubters  to  deal  with,  and  who 
wish  to  build  safely  if  they  build  at  all."— CAurcA  of  Ireland  Gazette. 

PASTORAL  VISITATION.      By  the  Rev.  H.  E.  Savage,  M.A., 
Vicar  of  Halifax  and  Hon.  Canon  of  Durham. 
"This  is  an  excellent  \>o6k.."— Spectator. 

AUTHORITY  IN  THE  CHURCH.  By  the  Very  Rev.  T.  B.  Strong, 
D.D.,  Dean  of  Christ  Church. 
"  This  is  a  valuable  and  timely  book,  small  in  bulk,  but  weighty  both  in 
style  and  substance.  .  .  .  The  Dean's  essay  is  an  admirable  one,  and  is  well 
calculated  to  clear  men's  minds  in  regard  to  questions  of  very  far-reaching 
importance.  Its  calm  tone,  and  its  clear  and  penetrating  thought  are  aUka 
characteristic  of  the  author,  and  give  a  peculiar  distinction  to  everything  he 
writes. ' '— Guardi<in. 

THE  STUDY  OF  ECCLESIASTICAL  HISTORY.  By  the  Right 
Kev.  W.  E.  Collins,  D.D.,  Bishop  of  Gibraltar. 
••  We  think  that  this  is  one  of  the  best  things  on  historical  method  that  has 
ever  been  written.  We  are  sure  that  it  is  the  best  we  have  ever  read.  .  .  .  We 
nope  that  the  book  will  be  widely  used ;  it  ought  to  be  given  to  all  under- 
graduates reading  for  historical  honours." — Athenaeum. 

RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE.     By  the  Rev.  P.  N.  Waggett,  M.A., 
of  the  Society  of  St.  John  the  Evangelist,  Cowley. 

The  main  result  of  this  remarkable  book  is  to  present  the  clergy,  for 
■     '  ,  f  o    ■ 


whom  it  is  intended  primarily  (but  we  hope  by  no  means  entirely,  for  it 
should  appeal  even  more  forcibly  to  the  other  camp,  to  the  professors  than 
to  the  preachers),  with  a  point  of  view."— CAwrcA  Times. 

LAY  WORK  AND  THE  OFFICE  OF  READER.  By  the  Right 
Rev.  HuYSHE  Yeatman-Biggs,  D  D.,  Bishop  of  Worcester. 
"  A  wise  and  valuable  little  book.  Bishop  Yeatman-Biggs  knows  what  he 
\3  writing  about ;  he  has  packed  into  a  small  space  all  that  most  people 
could  desire  to  learn  ;  and  he  has  treated  it  with  sense  and  soberness,  though 
never  with  dullness." — Church  of  Ireland  Gazette. 

CHURCH   MUSIC.      By  A.  Madelet  Richardson,  Mus.  Doc, 
Organist  of  Southwark  Cathedral. 

INTEMPERANCE.     By  the  Right  Rev.  H.  H.  Pereira,  D.D., 
Bishop  of  Croydon. 

ELEMENTARY  SCHOOLS.      By  the  Rev.  W.  Toxley  Norris, 
M.A.,  Rector  of  Barnsley,  and  Hon.  Canon  of  Wakefield. 

CHARITABLE  RELIEF.    By  the  Rev.  Clement  F.  Rogers,  M.A. 
"  One  of  the  most  practical  books  of  the  Series." — The  Living  Church. 

THE  LEGAL  POSITION  OF  THE  CLERGY.     By  Philip  Vernon 
Smith,  M.A.,  liLuD.,  Chancellor  of  the  Diocese  of  Manchester. 

PREPARATION  FOR  CONFIRMATION.  By  the  Rev.  J.  P.  Maud, 
M.A.,  Vicar  of  St.  Mary  Redclifife,  Bristol 


tETbe  (DrforD  ilibrar^  of  iJDractical  Qt^ieolog^* 

Edited  by  the  Rev.  W.  C  E.  Newbolt,  M.A.,  Canon  and  Chancellor  of  St. 
Paul's;  and  the  Rev.  Darwell  Stone,  M.A.,  Librarian  of  the  Pusey  Houae, 
Oxford. 

Price,  $1.40  net  per  Volume.    By  mail,  $1,50 


RELIGION.    By  the  Rev.  W.  C.  E.  Newbolt,  M.A.,  Canon  and 

Chancellor  of  St.  Paul's. 
"  The  Oxford  Library  of  Practical  Theology  makes  a  good  beginning  with 
Canon  Newbolt's  volume  on  religion.  .  .  .  The  publishers  have  spared  no 
pains  in  making  the  appearance  of  the  volume  as  attractive  as  possible.  The 
binding,  type,  and  general  'get  up '  of  the  volume  just  issued  leave  nothing  to 
be  desired."— Guardian. 

HOLY  BAPTISM.  By  the  Rev.  Darwell  Stone,  M.A., 
Librarian  of  the  Pusey  House,  Oxford. 
"Few  books  on  Baptism  contain  more  thoughtful  and  useful  instruction  on 
the  rite,  and  we  give  Mr.  Stone's  effort  our  highest  approval.  It  might  well  be 
made  a  text-book  for  candidates  for  the  diaconate,  or  at  least  in  theological 
colleges.  As  a  book  for  thoughf ul  laymen  It  is  also  certain  to  find  a  place."— 
Church  Times. 

CONFIRMATION.    By  the  Right  Rev.  A.  C.  A.  Hall,  D.D., 

Bishop  of  Vermont. 
"  To  the  parochial  clergy  this  volume  may  be  warmly  commended.    They  will 
find  it  to  be  a  storehouse  of  material  for  their  instruction,  aud  quite  the  best 
treatise  that  we  have  on  the  subject  it  treats.    It  is  thoroughly  practical,  and 
gives  exactly  the  kind  of  teaching  that  is  wanted."— Gtiardian. 

THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  BOOK  OF  COMMON   PRAYER.     By 

the  Rev.  Leighton  Pullan,  M.A.,  Fellow  of  St.  John  Baptist's  College, 

Oxford. 
"Mr.  Pullan's  book  will  no  doubt  have,  as  it  deserves  to  have,  a  large  number 
of  readers,  and  they  will  gain  a  great  deal  from  the  perusal  of  it.    It  may  be 
certainly  recommended  to  the  ordinary  laymen  as  by  far  the  best  book  on  the 
subject  available."— Pilot  (London). 

HOLY  MATRIMONY.  By  the  Rev.  W.  J.  Knox  Little,  M.A., 
Canon  of  Worcester. 
"Canon  Knox  Little  has  given  us  a  most  exhaustive  treatise  on  Holy  Matri- 
mony written  in  his  best  and  happiest  style,  and  giving  ample  proofs  of  wide 
research  and  deep  study  of  the  various  subjects,  and  the  essential  character 
Istics  of  Christian  marriage.  .  .  .  We  would  strongly  advise  the  clergy  to  place 
this  work  upon  their  shelves  as  a  book  of  reference,  while  It  forms  a  complete 
manual  of  instruction  to  aid  them  in  the  preparation  of  addresses  on  the  sub- 
ject."—Chwrc/i  BelU. 

THE  INCARNATION.    By   the    Rev.  H.   V.   S.   Eck,   M.A., 

Rector  of  St.  Matthew's,  Betbnal  Green. 
"The  teaching  is  sound,  and  the  book  may  be  placed  with  confidence  In  the 
hands  of  candidates  for  Orders  of  intelligent  and  educated  lay  people  who  de- 
sire fuller  instruction  on  the  central  doctrines  of  the  Faith  than  can  be  provided 
in  sermons."— Guardian. 

FOREIGN  MISSIONS.  By  the  Right  Rev.  E.T.  Churton,  D.D., 

formerly  Bishop  of  Nassau. 
"  We  welcome  Bishop  Churton's  book  as  an  authoritative  exposition  of  the 
modem  High  Church  view  of  Missions.    It  Is  good  for  us  all  to  understand  it, 
thereby  we  shall  be  saved  alike  from  uninstructed  admiration  and  indiscrimi- 
nate denunciation."— CTiurch.  Missionary  Intelli{jencer. 

PRAYER.     By  the  Rev.   Arthur  John    Worlledqe,    M.A., 
Canon  and  Chancellor  of  Truro. 
"  We  do  not  know  of  any  book  about  prayer  which  is  equally  useful ;  and  we 
anticipate  that  it  will  be  a  standard  work  for.  at  any  rate,  a  considerable 
time."— Pilot. 


Oxford  Library  of  Practical  Theology.— continued. 

SUNDAY.      By  the  Rev.  W.  B.  Treveltan,  M.A.,  Vicar  of  St. 
Matthew's,  Westminster. 
"An  extremely  useful  contribution  to  a  difficult  and  important  subject, 
and  we  are  confident  it  will  rank  high  in  the  series  to  which  it  belongs.— 
Guardian. 

THE  CHRISTIAN  TRADITION.     By  the  Rev.  Leighton  Pul- 

LAN,  M.A.,  Fellow  of  St.  John  Baptist's  College,  Oxford. 
*»*  This  book  contains  an  account  of  the  origin  of  ±^piscopacy,  the  three  Creeds, 
the  Ancient  Western  Liturgies  and  other  institutions  oj  the  Church.    Special  atten- 
tion is  also  given  to  the  early  history  of  Sacramental  Confession  and  to  the  principle 
of  Authority  in  the  Church  of  England. 

BOOKS  OF  DEVOTION.  By  the  Rev.  Charles  Bodington, 
Canon  and  Treasurer  of  Lichfield. 
♦'  Extremely  valuable  for  its  high  tone,  fidelity  to  Catholic  standards,  and 
powerful  advocacy  of  reality  in  private  devotion.  To  those  who  have  never 
studied  the  subject,  it  should  reveal  a  mine  of  devotional  wealth,  yet  to  be 
worked  with  profit  to  man  and  glory  to  God." — Church  Times. 

HOLY  ORDERS.     By  the  Rev.  A.  R.  Whitham,  M.A.,  Principal 
of  Culham  College,  Abingdon. 
"  For  the  educated  layman  who  wishes  to  know  what  the  Church  is  teach- 
ing about  the  minstry,  and  what  the  relation  of  the  laity  to  it  really  is,  this 
is  the  best  book  with  which  we  have  met."— Pi/o^  (London). 

THE  CHURCH   CATECHISM  THE   CHRISTIAN'S    MANUAL. 

By  the  Kev.  \V.  C.  E.  Newbolt,  M.  A.,  Canon  and  Chancellor  of  St.  Paul's, 
"  We  think  the  book  should  be  in  the  possession  of  every  teacher  who  can 
afford  it,  and  in  every  Church  Library  for  the  benefit  of  those  who  cannot. — 
The  Reader  and  Layworker. 

THE  HOLY  COMMUNION.  By  the  Rev.  Darwell  Stone, 
M.  A.,  Librarian  of  the  Pusey  House,  Oxford. 
"  The  book  meets  a  distinct  want,  and  is  indispensable  to  all  (and  surely 
they  are  very  many)  who  desire  to  have  a  concise  and  well-balanced  sum- 
mary of  the  dilferent  opinions  which  have  been  held  with  regard  to  the 
Holy  Communion  from  the  earliest  days  of  the  Church." — Oxford  Diocesan 
Magazine. 

CHURCH    WORK.      By   the  Rev.   Bernard   Reynolds,    M.A., 

Prebendary  of  St.  Paul's. 
"  What  is  needed  is  a  bright  and  sensiblj^  written  book  which  will  suggest 
topics  for  consideration  and  the  way  in  which  a  Christian  should  view  them. 
The  book  before  us  fulfils  these  conditions.    It  is  stimulating  and  sugges- 
tive, and  that  is  exactly  what  is  wanted."— (xMordtan. 

CHURCH  AND  STATE  IN  ENGLAND.  By  the  Rev.  W.  H. 
Abraham,  D.D.,  Vicar  of  St.  Augustine's,  Hull. 

OUR  LORD'S  RESURRECTION.  By  the  Rev.  W.  J.  Sparrow- 
Simpson,  M.A.,  Chaplain  of  St.  Mary's  Hospital,  Ilford. 

THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  RELIGIOUS  CEREMONIAL.   By  the  Rev. 

Walter  Howakd  Frere,  M.A.,of  the  Community  of  the  Resurrection. 

THE  ATONEMENT.  By  the  Rev.  Leighton  Pullan,  M.A.,  Fel- 
low of  St.  John  Baptist's  College,  Oxford. 

volumes  in  preparation. 
THE  BIBLE.     By  the  Rev.  Darwell  Stone,  M.A. 

OLD  TESTAMENT  CRITICISM.  By  the  Very  Rev.  Henbt 
Wace,  D.D.,  Dean  of  Canterbury. 

LONGMANS,  GREEN,  AND  CO.,  New  York 


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